In Search of Days Past
by MBIII
Summary: Artemis Zogg has been defeated and Ratchet seems to be back to his old self, but Talwyn knows better. It was obvious to her that Alister's death was still weighing heavily on the young Lombax's mind. Desperate to comfort her friend, Talwyn hopes to give Ratchet back a small piece of his lost past, but the key to finding it might lie in facing her own.
1. The Mission

**AN: This story takes place after the comic books and the defeat of Artemis Zogg. Just after the opening of All-4-one.**

* * *

Boxes and bags rustled loudly as something moved in the darkness. The clinking of small trinkets chimed occasionally, while the sound of strained breathing permeated it all.

"Now where is that blasted switch?" grumbled an unseen, feminine voice. "I know there was a working one on this side of the- Woah!"

A deep rumble filled the air as an avalanche of unseen objects gave way.

"Darn this stupid- Oh... here it is!"

With a sound of a click, light flooded into the expansive, yet heavily-cluttered chamber of the Apogee Space Station. From wall to wall and floor to ceiling the room was filled with boxes, bags, and crates, a solitary toilet seat, and numerous ancient artifacts that were stacked on top of one another.

Catalog labels hung from many of the objects, but any other semblance of organization was completely absent.

Hanging upside-down from one of these towers of junk was a young Markazian with her hand still outstretched toward the recently activated light switch.

Talwyn Apogee blinked hard against the harsh and sudden brightness, but took it all in with a satisfied grin, "Got it!" she declared in triumph and pumped her fist victoriously.

Unfortunately, the momentum of the gesture shifted her wait and the amalgamation of junk that she'd been hanging from shifted with her. Barely stable bits of junk slid free from the pile and Talwyn lost her foothold.

The young Markazian fell face-first into the ground as tiny brick-a-brack rained down on her.

"Miss Talwyn, are you in there?" called a concerned, mechanical voice. "Miss Talwyn, what was that noise? Are you hurt?!"

"I'm fine, Zeph…" Talwyn shouted back reassuringly as she picked herself up off the ground. "Just lost my footing is all."

Back on her feet, the young Markazian dusted herself off and once again examined the overpacked room that she'd been blindly crawling through until now. She noted that, miraculously, it somehow looked even more disorganized right-side up. The dusty archive hadn't seen light in years.

Stepping through the clutter as carefully as he could, a stocky, red and grey painted robot made his way into view, "What are you doing in here, Miss Talwyn?" asked the old, overprotective warbot. "I thought you said that your father's study wasn't to be touched until he returned?"

"Yeah, I know that Zephyr…" Talwyn answered sadly, "I wanted to leave it exactly as he had... as if he'd never been gone, but now I need to go through it."

"Really?" the curious automaton asked. "I figured that since that Lombax pup was back in Polaris, you'd want to spend all your time with him?"

Talwyn smiled solemnly at her friend's amazing mix of both insightfulness and obliviousness.

"Of course I'm glad Ratchet's back," she said, trying to sound positive. "It may have taken a planet-thieving wannabe-tyrannical-overlord, but... I am glad."

Talwyn trailed off for a moment, lost in thought, before letting out a sigh.

"Except, he still isn't 'all' back yet," she continued, sounding much less positive now. "He's not the same 'Ratchet' he used to be, not since Azimuth died. I can tell it still weighs on him, even if he tries to hide it. He'd still rather work on menial repair jobs than go on an adventure or even tinker with his own inventions."

Zephyr cocked his head, "Hmm, do you mean the 'same Ratchet' who tore through the Apogee defense grid and blew a ten-meter wide hole in our kitchen on a rumor?"

The memory of the excitable Lombax adventurer as he had been made Talwyn's long ears perk up, "Yes! That's the Ratchet I..." but she trailed off when she recognized the sarcasm in her guardian's tone. "Ehem*... what I mean is: he's clearly still hurting."

"Ah, I see," the old warbot said while nodding with understanding. "So you're upset that your knight in fuzzy armor isn't jumping headfirst into the nearest black hole just to fight the next psychopath-led army of mutant zombie robot insects? That makes sense... But what does that have to do with you digging through your father's study?"

Talwyn eyed the automaton with a slight scowl, wishing the scenario he'd described was as unrealistic as it sounded, "Zeph, he said he was done being a hero! You heard him in that interview, he's not even going to help hunt down Nefarious."

The old warbot tried to look sympathetic, "He just needs time, Miss Talwyn. He'll be back to his old madcap antics and kitchen kerfuffling in no time, you'll see... So, about this mess?"

"Maybe," Talwyn began, sounding unconvinced, "but Azimuth was Ratchet's only link to his past. A past he's never known anything about before. To suddenly gain something like that and then to lose it in the way that he did must have been devastating."

"Miss Talwyn," Zephyr began sympathetically. "I am a very old robot. My joints are rusty and my processors run slower than they used to. To be honest I don't know how much longer I'll keep humming. In fact... I fear I may not last until the end of this explanation! What in the blazes does any of this have to do with you mountain climbing in the debris field that is your father's study?"

Talwyn's expression hardened and she fixed her robot companion with a cold look, "Zephyr, do you remember when I was seven and I figured out how to rewire your voice synthesizer?"

"Hm? Oh! Oh yes. Sorry, Miss Talwyn. Please continue," the automaton apologized vehemently. "I'll be quiet and patient, scouts honor."

The young Markazian just shook her head before reaching down and rummaging through the nearest box of archeological notes. "Anyway, I was trying to think of something that could possibly cheer Ratchet up, maybe give him back something that he'd lost. The 'reason' I decided to go through dad's study is-"

"Zephyr, Miss Talwyn, there you are!" interrupted a third voice.

They both turned to find a second, equally old warbot entering the room who then immediately started trudging their way through the clutter to get to them.

"You've got to come see this on the holo-vision!" he said again.

"Gosh dangit, Cronk!" snapped Zephyr in frustration. "I'm going to be an old rust pile by the time I figure out this mystery!"

"Yes, Cronk," added Talwyn, annoyed that the exposition of her brilliant plan had been interrupted. "I'm sure whatever happened on this week's Lance and Janice can wait five seconds."

"But Miss Talwyn," Cronk pleaded. "Meridia-"

"I said: quiet... or it's chipmunk voices for a week."

Memory files of having his voice modulator sped up played through Cronk's mind and he immediately deflated, "Yes, Miss Talwyn" he conceded, before quietly settling into place next to Zephyr.

"Good. Now, where was I? Oh right... Even though Ratchet won't tell me much about Azimuth, or what little about his past he's learned, I have managed to get him to tell me a little about his father, Kaden. Apparently this 'Kaden' was some kind of brilliant Lombax scientist."

"Kaden?" repeated Zephyr thoughtfully. "Where have I heard that name before?"

"Maybe he owes us money?" Cronk offered unhelpfully.

"Exactly!" Talwyn declared in excitement. "If this 'Kaden' guy was such a famous Lombax, then my father must have researched him at some point. If you two remember the name, then dad must have mentioned him at some point!"

"Hmmm," Zephyr intoned skeptically, "I don't know, Miss Talwyn. I wouldn't trust the data on our old hard drives."

"Oh, I don't," Talwyn agreed, without hesitation, "but my theory's still sound. I've decided to go digging through my father's research for any mention of a Lombax scientist named 'Kaden'. If I can give Ratchet even a little bit of his lost past, maybe he'll come back to me… all of him this time."

Zephyr nodded his understanding, "I see, that's a wonderful idea, Miss Talwyn."

Talwyn smiled at the well-deserved praise, "Thank you, Zephyr."

"Yeah, and I'll bet that he'll be so happy he'll lay his head right on your lap and let you play with his ears," he teased.

Talwyn blanched at the comment, "No! That's not what I-"

"Oh look, Cronk, she's blushing! I knew she was really thinking about it, that's what all the fangirls on the holonet want to do to him. Ho ho ha, that's a good one."

As Zephyr laughed mercilessly, the young, red-faced Markazian opened her mouth to retort, but Cronk interjected before she could, "I'm so proud of you Miss Talwyn," the old warbot declared with sincerity. "In order to give the rookie a piece the past he's lost, you're willing to face your own after all these years."

Some of Talwyn's anger subsided, "Thanks, Cronk," she said appreciatively. "It's nice to know that 'some' people can recognize a girl's hard work and can be sensitive about it... Oh, wait! Cronk, what was so important earlier?"

"Earlier?" the old automaton questioned in confusion. "What are you talking about? I was just watching holo-vision earlier."

"You old bucket of bolts!" Zephyr barked in frustration. "You came in here screamin' about how Miss Talwyn and I have to come see something right away."

"Did I?" Cronk asked with a thoughtful look. "Hmm, well… when I was watching 'Galactic News: The Entire Universe in your living room', I did hear about something crazy that I thought you guys would want to see."

Zephyr was tapping his metallic foot impatiently, "Well, spit it out already, ya darn fool. I didn't get through one long explanation just to get pulled into yours!"

"Hold your horses…" Cronk countered defensively, hating having his processors rushed like this. "I'll get it in a second. Uh... it was something about a heinous doctor trying to kill the king of subatomic particles... with some kind of diet food? No, it also had tools involved, maybe a wrench, but I distinctly remember the tools were banged together to make noise."

Zephyr turned to Talwyn to see if she knew what he was talking about, but the young Markazian simply shook her head and shrugged.

"Ah-ha! I remember now!" declared Cronk triumphantly. "The headline was: 'Dr. Nefarious Unleashes Light Eating Zegrute to Kill President Qwark, Hero's Ratchet and Clank Attempt To Subdue.'"

The oblivious blue robot then sat there looking extremely pleased with himself.

"What?!" shouted Talwyn and Zephyr together.

"Tell us something that important sooner, you steam-driven rust bucket!" Zephyr insisted hysterically.

Cronk looked defensive, yet apologetic, "Well, I tried to, but Miss Talwyn had something important to tell us."

"Oh, whatever!" the red mechanoid dismissed with a wave of his hand, before turning back to Talwyn. "I'm sorry, Miss Talwyn. I guess we've got to go pull some green bacon out of another frying pan. Honestly, the rookies give us one day off from guarding that giant green bullseye and this happens!"

Talwyn just smiled and nodded with understanding, "It's alright guys. Just make sure everyone's safe, OK?"

"Yeah, Zeph," pressed Cronk dutifully as he got up to follow. "We gotta make sure there's still enough pieces left o' the rookie for Miss Talwyn to give whatever information she finds to!"

"You bet!" agreed Zephyr, with a mischievous grin on his large mechanical features. "Priority on protecting the ears, right Miss Talwyn?"

"Get moving you two! Or else I'll rewire your voice boxes with an Alpha Disruptor!"

"Already gone, Miss Talwyn!" Zephyr called back as he disappeared down the hall. "Good luck with your search!"

When both of them were well out of earshot Talwyn let out a long sigh, "Seriously, those two," she said aloud to herself. "Maybe instead of their voice modulators, I'll adjust their empathy gauges…"

"Besides, it's not like I really wanted to scratch his ears or anything," she insisted, defensively, to nobody at all. "I mean, I don't even know if he'd like having his ears scratched? Or maybe he'd prefer it if I scratched under his chin? I wonder if his tail would wag if I-"

The stupidly grinning Markazian suddenly realized where her mind was going and shook her head violently, "What am I thinking about?!" she declared loudly. "No! I came here to do something important. I've got to keep focused!"

Broken from her dream, Talwyn's expression turned serious once more, as she returned her attention to the first pile of junk. She could see the tiny corner of a table poking helplessly from the lower half of it.

"Well, as they say," she continued aloud, "'the journey of a thousand parsecs starts with the first warp jump'."

Talwyn then reached down and gripped a random box that was about chest height in the pile. Ever so gently she began to pull, but as she did so the tower began to wobble threateningly and the various objects that made up its structure jostled against one another.

Talwyn quickly withdrew her hand and took a fearful step back, looking up at the high mound of junk that cast its shadow on her,

"This might be more difficult than I thought."


	2. The Search

Talwyn Apogee floated in zero-g as she looked over the results of her efforts with mixed feelings. It had taken her almost a week of non-stop effort just to clear enough room in the sea of research material to breathe. The room which was now much less densely packed, but by no means organized.

The idea to turn off the gravity in her father's study to prevent what she had taken to calling 'junk-alanches' had been, in her mind at least, a brilliant one. It had taken some tweaking of the gravity generation system's wiring to only turn off the weight in the one room only, but she had managed to figure it out eventually and the lack of gravity had made it 'much' easier to dig through the clutter, some of which had been very heavy.

However, to every action, there is a reaction. The downside to turning off the gravity in a room full of junk was that you then found yourself in a room full of junk with no gravity. In the days that passed after that, fishing for answers in the floating debris field had become literally that.

The corridor outside the room and some of the adjacent rooms, which all still had their gravity turned on, were now filled with boxes upon boxes of artifacts and research material. All of which had been painstakingly fished out of the quagmire and sorted.

Talwyn's system for sorting the material was a step by step process of elimination.

First up was the easy stuff. Her father, Max Apogee, had been an explorer and researcher of many different fascinating subjects throughout the Polaris galaxy and beyond. While Lombax studies were his most impassioned and well-known focus, he had gathered more than enough trinkets and notes from the research of numerous other races and mysteries as well.

All of which hampered Talwyn's search. Anything she had found over the past few days that did not pertain to Lombaxes had been quickly ushered to the hallway or into an adjacent room.

Next up, the young Markazian knew that she needed information on Ratchet's father, the Lombax known as Kaden, so she removed all the 'ancient' Lombax artifacts and research data.

Talwyn's own father was extremely interested in the eras of Lombax civilization that had long since been left behind by the technologically advanced race.

Each day she had found crate after crate of old Lombax pottery, drawing, and other relics that he'd likely salvaged from Fastoonian museums or even collected before the reclusive race had disappeared from Polaris.

Finally, Talwyn had decided to remove all the boxes of research that focused heavily on Lombax culture and arts.

Talwyn's reasoning for this was that she was looking for a famous Lombax scientist, with a secondary objective of locating anything related to Alister Azimuth, a Lombax Praetorian General. She didn't have the time to waste on anything else at the moment, so if something wasn't labeled 'science and technology' or 'military', it had to go.

'_Which was a real shame,'_ she had thought to herself as she'd carried another small crate from the weightless room, taking care not underestimate how heavy it might be once she entered the hallway this time.

Over the course of the week, she had found several references to popular cultural figures of Lombax society. One example being her father's collection of books from a famous Lombax novelist named Clarissa Eros. Many of these stories were focused on romance, which Talwyn loved, so she had kept these in a separate pile so that she could 'research' them for her own personal interest, sometime in the future.

She didn't keep the whole collection, though. The young Markazian had quickly found out that some of Miss Eros' books were, in fact, 'x'-rated erotica! These books she had separated from the rest, instead safely stashing away where no innocent eyes might accidentally find them… like her room, under her bed, safe and sound.

After that, she had come across another crate. This one had been filled with holo-recordings of a famous Lombax musician named Sorana Bellit. Talwyn had thought the name had a pretty ring to it, so, in a moment of weakness, she stopped her quest and listened to some of the tracks. She even started playing some as she continued to work.

Apparently, Miss Bellit was a 'harmonixium' player. The Harmonixium being a harp-like instrument known galaxy wide as being extremely difficult to master. The art form had fallen out of popularity when the Lombaxes disappeared, but Talwyn couldn't figure out why, the serene sounds that the holo-recordings tickled her ears with were exquisite.

As interesting as all this was, however, the fact of the matter remained that none of this had to do with Ratchet's past, or Kaden, and so, reluctantly, the young Markazian had pushed on with the daunting task of removing all the cultural research from the packed room.

As the days had gone by, the study had slowly emptied and the halls had quickly filled. Only then had Talwyn finally realized why her father called this place a study and not a storage archive... because it was!

Underneath the decades of collected junk and dust, she had discovered a full-sized couch, several holo-projectors that had been set-up before being buried, a large lamp meant to help with studying intricate artifacts at a desk (though not the desk), and she'd even found a regular-old bookshelf that one might find in an actual study.

Most surprising of all, however, was that she'd even discovered that the room had a window! In fact, the entire far wall was just one giant plate of thick astral-grade glass.

Talwyn hadn't even realized it was there until she'd tried to steady herself against it and accidentally scraped away a literal handful of dust from its surface. She had stared in disbelief at the uncovered section and at the soft starlight that had poked through it.

She then immediately set about cleaning off the rest of the thing.

At least part of the reason she did this was just to get a break from the non-stop junk excavation, but it was mostly because she thought that the view would be a nice addition to have while she worked… plus she was starting to worry that all the dust inhalation might kill her while she was alone on the station with no hope of help coming for her.

Now, still floating over the room, Talwyn gave a slight nod of approval, finally deciding that she liked the progress she was making after all her hard work.

She then made sure that all remaining material would fall safely, before slowly turning the gravity back on.

Once standard Markazia-level G's were attained again, she could sit comfortably while going through the vast amount of information and research data that still remained in the study. All of it Military or Science related.

* * *

Talwyn dropped the small crate onto the floor next to the others and wiped the sweat from her brow.

With gravity returned to the study, moving things around was a lot more exhausting. Despite the relatively small amount of remaining research material left in the room, what was left was a disorganized amalgamation of densely-packed crates containing everything from data disks to heavy tools/gadgets of obvious Lombax design.

She had considered moving the weighty devices outside with the other stuff, but she was afraid of separating them from their corresponding research notes, which she intended to go through.

She had also looked into trying to simply lighten the gravity in the room a bit, but that proved problematic as well. The gravity generator had always been finicky, ever since she'd accidentally blasted it with an Alpha Disruptor. Sure, maybe she shouldn't have been using such a powerful weapon on a space station, but who puts such an important piece of equipment right next to an indoor firing range?

The point being that the generator was already worrying her after she'd just jury-rigged it to cut gravity to her father's study altogether. Any more tampering might push it over the edge, so she didn't want to risk making it regulate two different gravitational outputs at once.

So instead, Talwyn had simply tied up her hair and ditched her tight adventurers' outfit in favor of a simple, lightweight tank top.

The perspiratory evidence of her hard work had left large, unsightly stains over most of her clothes' surface, but the young Makazian had recently had an epiphany. For the first time since she could remember, she was alone on the Apogee Space station.

When her father had disappeared, she had been too young to be left on her own and since then, Cronk and Zephyr had become an ever-present part of her life.

The last message she'd received from her two warbot guardians had said that they were in pursuit of a large, weaponized drone that had abducted Ratchet and Clank. Of course, Talwyn was worried about the boys, but she also knew that they could handle themselves.

In the meantime, however, this meant that she would be completely alone on the station until their return, so what did it matter what she looked like if no one was there to see it?

Her strenuous efforts hadn't been for nothing, either. With this last crate she'd just put down, she'd finally sorted through, and roughly organized, the vast library of holo-disks that had made up her father's research notes.

She had gotten lucky in this respect, as a large portion of the collection appeared to have been made for sharing in academic circles. Unlike the haphazard digital recordings and notes meant for the personal use of a single, eccentric Markazian explorer, these holo-disks had been recorded in a way that was meant to be heard by an audience.

Eager to get started digging through data rather than junk, Talwyn quickly popped one of these holo-disks into a nearby projector and turned it on.

In seconds, a life-sized holographic projection of Max Apogee flashed into existence. He stood tall and bold, wearing his trademark explorer outfit and grinning down genially at her.

Talwyn was caught off guard to find her father suddenly standing in front of her, but she quickly shook off the surprise. It was quite common for researchers to explain their findings like this, as no one was more qualified to teach a lesson on their research than themselves. Talwyn had even watched her father record a few of these holo-disks when she was little, so she should have expected it.

"So, you want to know about Lombaxes, ey?" the holographic Markazian asked, with a questioning look. "Well, you've come to right place... or perhaps it came to you, if you ordered this holo-disk by mail!"

Max Apogee chuckled at his own joke and Talwyn couldn't help but grimace/smile at her father's familiarly cringeworthy humor.

The hologram continued, "In this series, I will be talking about my efforts to find any remnants of the secretive Lombax agency known as the Center for Advanced Lombax Research. It was said to be the most scientifically powerful organization in all of Fastoon, made up of some of the most brilliant minds to ever be born with fur and stripes."

Talwyn's ears perked up at this, thinking she may have hit the jackpot already. Kaden was supposed to have been so brilliant, he was made Guardian of the Dimensionator, which the C.A.L.R. was supposed to have developed.

"The first time I'd ever even learned that this shadowy group existed was when I stumbled upon an old research lab in the ruins of Fastoon," Max Apogee recounted pensively. "The lab was vast and filled with some of the most advanced research equipment I'd ever had the honor of not understanding. The room itself was almost as fascinating as… the tale of how I found it!"

Immediately Talwyn's posture deflated and she let out a low sigh. After a bit, though, a half-grin returned to her face. She remembered clearly about her father's habit of dropping tantalizing promises of what he'd learned, only to tangent off into stories of how he'd discovered it in the first place. The details he recounted were either so well remembered, or so heavily embellished, that they often took as long to retell as it had to experience them.

Just as she'd predicted, the holographic Apogee then launched into the epic narrative of adventure through the ruins of Fastoon, filled with excitement, heroism, and most assuredly grand embellishment.

Again, the young Markazian grinned and even allowed herself to laugh a little as she watched her father's antics. He was exactly as she remembered him.

As he continued to recount his journey, however, a small lump began to form in the back of Talwyn's throat. The one-to-one scale version of her long lost father continued to cheerfully chronicle his harrowing adventure, unaware as Talwyn's smile faded and something small, but heavy dropped into her stomach.

The sensation was weak at first and she tried to ignore it, but the weight in her gut seemed to get worse each time she heard her the holographic adventurer laugh or tell another awful joke.

By the time Max Apogee had even finished setting the stage for his tale, Talwyn's stomach was a knot of pain and her eyes were on the verge of tears. She had forgotten how much she missed her father.

The young Markazian glanced solemnly over at the stack of crates, containing literally hundreds of other holo-disks. Only now did she truly understand what Cronk had meant when he'd said he was proud of her for facing her past.

Just as melancholy was about to set in, however, Talwyn set her jaw and took another look at the massive horde of information, all of it pertaining to the science and military history of the Lombax people.

She knew that somewhere in that vast mountain of data there had to be some mention of Ratchet's father and with it, the keys to Ratchet's own past.

The thought of giving that key to Ratchet and seeing his reaction quickly warmed the ice from Talwyn's heart and she resolutely turned back to her own, holographic, father.

Going through these holo-disks was not about the past... neither hers, nor Ratchet's. It was about the future and what she could do for her 'knight in fuzzy armor' with them.

A determined glint entered Talwyn's eyes and she held her head high with determination. No matter how painful it was, or how long it took, she would find what she was looking for.


	3. The Break

"Day twenty-five," Talwyn whispered conspiratorially into her holo-recorder. "I have abandoned the bedroom. Despite numerous attempts to make the arduous journey, the long distance between it and the study has proved simply too great and too cold... What was that, Chet?" she asked, a wild eye fixed on the unmoving stuffed Lombax.

The plush doll did not respond.

Talwyn nodded and turned back to her recorder, "Chet makes a good point, I probably 'could' make it... if I were to get dressed, but ain't nobody got time for that. My food supplies are dwindling, though," she continued as she glanced at the large stack of mostly empty pizza boxes and takeout food containers. "The current stocks will likely only last me a few more days, then I will have to attempt to commune with the gods of Deliv and Ary again, but they are as reluctant as always to travel through an asteroid belt just to get to the station. Although, the taco place has been unusually eager to make the trip, ever since that time I forgot to put on pants when met their herald at the airlock. Maybe something to consider for the others."

The young Markazian tried to sound unperturbed in the recording, but the memory of that embarrassing blunder still haunted her. Chet knew the truth though, his sewn on eyes glaring at her with projected judgment. Somehow, he always knew what she was thinking.

Looking away from his gaze, Talwyn turned her attention over to the large pile of holo-disks that sat on the far side of the room. These represented the ones she'd already gone through.

"Still no results of adequate quality to present to my furry waifu," she said somberly to her recorder, unfazed by her own wording. Then she glanced over at the much larger pile of untouched holo-disks, "But hope still remains," she continued, knowing that there was still much to go through.

In truth, she had actually found several records referring to an 'Azimuth Family'. Apparently, Alister's relatives had owned a fairly large trillium mining company. The information was interesting, but she had decided that it wasn't something she wanted to show to Ratchet.

She'd known from the start that anything she learned about the four-bolt Magister, Alister Azimuth, would be a double-edged sword. She was sure that Ratchet would desperately want to know more about the man and his father's close friend, but it was just as likely to remind him of Alister's death. If possible, she wanted to bring something about Kaden first and then 'maybe' present things about Azimuth only after his heart had healed a bit.

"Good tidings of the world beyond the study came today," Talwyn declared, sounding more cheerful now in an attempt to distract herself from the dreary thoughts. "Ratchet and the boys have been reported as returning safely to galactic starspace. I find it odd that I haven't received word from them directly yet, but apparently they showed up in the middle of a highly populated area flying a massive, weaponized drone. Knowing Ratchet, I can trust that the reports are true. My faith in Ratchet, Clank, Cronk, and Zephyr has never wavered once in this past month, but it is still good to know that everyone I care about is safe and sound. Also, it seems that Qwark survived. However, this means that my time runs short as I'm sure the boys will be returning once things have settled back down. I fear I may not have anything to show for my efforts by that time. This is Talwyn Apogee, signing off."

The 'slightly' stir-crazed Markazian then deactivated her small recording device. There was no more room on the cluttered coffee table nearby, so she simply tossed it onto a pile of clothes that lay on the floor next to the couch she'd been sleeping on… as well as eating on, watching her father's recordings on, and generally not moving from if at all possible.

The holo-screen projector in front of it was still tuned to the morning galactic news, but had been muted so that she could make her 'report'.

Now, that her daily dose of nonsense out of the way, Talwyn let out a long groan and fell back into her blankets and pillow. She was torn. Hearing that everyone was safe had been great news, but it only reminded her that after nearly a month of digging, she'd found nothing about Ratchet's father and she was nearing her breaking point.

Her own father, brilliant in his own right, was no scientist. No matter how focused his research was on Lombax technology and science, he always ended up rambling about cultural significances or military histories. Barely anything specific about the science or the scientists themselves.

Talwyn didn't blame him for this though. Everything he had to say was still fascinating and, in truth, she was glad for the perspective. Many of the stories that the holographic Max Apogee had detailed were similar to the ones the real one had told her as a child, but only now could she fully appreciate them.

She'd found many holo-disks with information about battles and aid missions that the Lombaxes were famous for, several other disks were about how a large percentage of Polaris' modern-day gadgets and devices were either based on, or directly copied from lombax technology, and she was reminded again and again of how Lombaxes were famous for their ingenuity, if not for their practicality.

Still though, none of it was what she was looking for, and while she was sure Ratchet would find it all even more interesting than she did, it wasn't what mattered most to him.

She sighed into her pillow again at her lack of results. After a moment, however, she looked up and studied the stuffed teddy bax a short distance away. She made note yet again of how much it reminded her of Ratchet. Not because it really looked like him, but because it was cute and soft and she desperately wanted to snuggle it tightly forever.

Talwyn's expression became more serious as she remembered her resolve, "You're right, Chet," she agreed, imaging that the small toy's unblinking expression was encouraging her not to give up. "If my time is short, that's all the more reason not to be moping about and wasting it!"

Quickly, and with new life, the young Markazian sat up on the couch/bed and resolutely pulled the warm embrace of the blanket off of her. Still in her nightgown, which consisted of one large, green Q-force T-shirt and a single pair of black panties, she stepped out of bed with determination.

Immediately she felt the freezing touch of the cold, metal floor bite into her bare feet and she let out a squeak of surprise, before reflexively pulling her legs back into the inviting safety of her covers.

Talwyn glared at the hated floor, always forgetting about the lack of carpeting in this section of the station. Her father had put down several throw rugs in the study, but they had been rotten and falling apart by the time she'd discovered them.

'_Maybe, time isn't 'that' short,'_ she thought to herself, before letting out another sigh.

The tired Markazian then shook her head as her blaze of motivation quickly fizzled to a simmer. Remembering how sleepy she was, she yawned deeply and took her time to stretch the stiffness out of her limbs, slowly allowing herself to wake up completely in the soft glow of the starlit-study.

Rubbing sleep from her eyes, Talwyn reached over the edge of her couch and began to feel around for a fresh set of clothes, but her searching hand found nothing.

Squinting through heavy eyelids, Talwyn glanced down at the bare spot on the floor and frowned, suddenly remembering her failed attempts to retrieve a fresh stack of shirts from her room.

Well, she used the phrase 'failed attempts' in her head, but each time she'd really just stared at the doorway to the study, then to the cold floor, and had eventually given up before even getting off of the couch.

There were no pants around either, but that wasn't a problem. The young Markazain had abandoned pants fairly quickly into her expedition. Once she'd started spending all her time on the couch, watching old holo-recordings, her legs rarely left the comfort of her blankets. The laundry room was clear on the other side of the space station and the brilliant idea, in her mind at least, to abandon unnecessary clothing had resulted in her halving the number of trips she'd had to make to wash and transport everything.

Turning her frowning expression down to her chest, she regarded what she was wearing now. Seemingly the only good thing about being associated with the famed 'Captain Qwark' was the unending supply of free t-shirts he constantly gave out. Probably how he won the election.

While she'd never wear the large, lightning-bolt 'Q' that was associated with her moron of a Galactic President in public, the oversized and surprisingly comfortable shirt made perfect sleepwear.

Talwyn shrugged dismissively, it wasn't like there was anyone here to see her wear it.

She then ran a hand through her tangled and unwashed hair and sighed.

There was a washroom down on this level and it had a shower, but if she didn't have any more clean clothes, what good was a shower doing her at this point? Luckily, there was nobody else on the station.

Mostly awake now, Talwyn decided to get to work.

She avoided the floor by sliding along the couch until she reached the other end. There, she pulled a plastic-wrapped plate from the nearby table. Her unfinished dinner of pepperoni and acid-eel pizza would now become her breakfast of champions.

As she nibbled absently on a slice, the young and disheveled Markazian half-yawned, half-rasped out the words, "Play next," to the holo-projector on the far side of the room.

Obediently, the device recognized the voice command (though barely) and switched from holo-vision mode, to direct input. Simultaneously it removed the disk in its main port and replaced it with the next one in its magazine. A few seconds later, a life-sized version of Maxwell Apogee appeared in the middle of the study.

"Based on the various data recordings I've collected from the remains of Fastoon, I've been able to learn much about the genetic and cultural significance of various fur colors among lombax society," Max Apogee began, as if speaking to a class on lombaxology.

The slight heartache Talwyn had felt upon seeing her father in holographic form had numbed considerably, to the point where she quickly forgot about it, but, even after so many days, it was not gone completely. Still nibbling her cold pizza in one hand, Talwyn reached over and snagged Chet from where he was sitting, before pulling him close and snuggling back into her blanket with him.

"Recently, however," the holographic Markazian continued, "I came upon some new references to a very obscure sub-culture of the race; one that had apparently not been discovered by the primary inhabitants of Fastoon until the Great War. Not only that, but the truth of this discovery had been concealed from the general Lombax population all the way into the Modern age!"

Talwyn raised an eyebrow. The information sounded interesting, but she doubted it was what she was looking for. Kaden wasn't a bioscientist after all. Still, this was the last holo-disk in the projector's magazine, so she decided to give it some more time… before she had to get up and refill it.

"Believed to have evolved on a large island near one of Fastoon's arctic regions, this society of Lombaxes was said to be the only sub-group to develop a full coat of naturally occurring red fur and were so rare that they were a legend even among the Lombax people themselves."

The Apogee hologram paused for a moment and Talwyn recognized the look on her father's face as the one he wore when he was debating 'if' he should say something, rather than how he wanted to say it.

Then he seemed to come to a conclusion and nodded, "Because of how little information there is about them, I hesitate to even bring them up in a serious academic report such as this. However, while any detailed information I've come across previously about this group is highly suspect, little more than rumors or hearsay, I have always had it on a highly reliable source that they 'did', in fact, exist at the very least."

Max Apogee's voice then got low and his holographic form leaned forward, as if trying to whisper a secret he was giddily dying to tell everyone. "Recently, I found a journal, written by one of the most renowned Lombax scientists on Fastoon!"

Talwyn sat up a little, this time she was extremely curious. 'Lombax scientist', those were the golden words! Still, she remained cautious, knowing that this scientist was likely a specialist in Lombax biology.

"But first," Max Apogee continued, before standing up straight again, "let me tell you about the incredible journey that led to its discovery!"

"No! Daaaaaad..." Talwyn groaned as she tossed an unused bra at his incorporeal form. The soft piece of cloth shimmered with projected light as it went right through him.

"Deep underground, in the ruins of Fastoon," the hologram continued, unaware of its audience's displeasure. "there was a massive science bunker for the Division of Advanced Lombax Research. It took me many tries to get in and I was quickly reminded of how the inventiveness of a Lombax defense system in many ways outclassed their prowess for combat. The defenses were less deadly, mainly meant to capture and not kill, but I'd rather face a blaster on the battlefield over some of the wicked contraptions they come up with. For instance, while just trying to find my way into this bunker I got lost in a maze. Now, in my experience, mazes are usually pretty simple, you just put your hand on a wall and keep walking until you find an exit... Well, at some point in this maze a gravity generator activates, causing you to walk up the walls without realizing it. I wandered that maze for 3 days and wore through two pairs of gloves searching for the exit. I would have died too, if I hadn't fallen over from exhaustion and happened to see the exit below me, high above my head!"

Max Apogee became lost in his ruminations of what was without a doubt an amazing journey, but Talwyn had no time for it at the moment. Having known that her father's 'epic tales' often rambled longer than the actual informative bits that would come after, she cleared her throat.

"Cycle skip, five-minute intervals, five-second delay," she ordered.

The holoprojector recognized the order and began making jumps through the holo-recording at intermediate intervals.

"Well it was about that time when I had realized the correct answer was the left stone….after I finished eating it, I experienced the most unbearable case of dia… so I began to chisel away at it until I realized that it was breathing!….. and that was the third time I had lost my underwear….. purple blisters all along my foot, but the pus was actually the color of…. I looked everywhere, but I had no idea where the toe was….. makes this the second most credible source on Red Lombaxes, right after Kaden himself.…."

Talwyn choked on her pizza as she heard the name, the glazed expression she'd been wearing suddenly shattering as she sat bolt upright. The surprised Markazian tried to order a stop command, but her airways were blocked and she hacked violently to try and remove it.

"S-stop!" she finally grasped, not sure if the projector would recognize the strained order.

But the device did and the holographic Max Apogee suddenly stood still, frozen mid-sentence.

Talwyn quickly fought the last bits of food from her windpipe and ordered the projector to rewind the recording to the point just before she'd heard the name.

The image of Max Apogee reformed and he began to speak again, "The journal belonged to none other than the famed bioscientist Lorna Cross!" the hologram said excitedly. "Within its data archives were many things, but within them was the only comprehensive biological study on Red Lombaxes that I have ever found! Dr. Cross' name makes this the second most credible source on Red Lombaxes, right after Kaden himself."

Talwyn fought hard to keep herself from a repeat performance, as she almost choked on saliva alone. This proved easier now that her mouth was going dry. She leaned forward intently and held her breath in anticipation.

"Ah, now that's a name that takes me back," the holographic Markazian noted pensively. "I was rather young, believe it or not, when I first met Kaden, before the rise of Tachyon, of course. I was still a relatively unknown adventurer back then, just starting my research on the Fongoids and their strange Zoni gods… but that's a story for another holo-disk. Part of my very first Fongoid research series, I believe… availablewhereverApogeeEnterprisesholo-diskseriesaresold."

Talwyn gawked at her pixel-bodied father, "You 'knew' Kaden, personally?" she shouted in demand of the hologram, as if she expected an answer. Her mind reeled at the implications what she'd just heard.

"I was also surprised to find a lot of research notes made in preparation for an expedition to the Bogon Galaxy. It makes me wonder if Dr. Cross might have-"

"Stop," Talwyn ordered, not even looking at her father anymore.

Max Apogee froze again as a huge, excited grin split across his daughter's face. Her eyes were wide as she stared out the study's entrance and into the hall where she'd moved all the Fongoid related research.

Even as she cautioned herself that there was no guarantee that this 'Kaden' was Ratchet's father, it didn't slow her heart rate a single beat. At last, she had her breakthrough!

Unable to contain her excitement, the young Markazian threw off her blanket and quickly ran out into the hallway in search of the mentioned research…

Several seconds later she came running back, jumping from foot to foot while sucking in air between her teeth.

She jumped back into the protection of her bed and couch with a long, "Ahhhhhh."

"Make a note, Chet," Talwyn hissed, as she held her half-frozen feet in her warm hands, "First, find socks… then find Dad's research."

* * *

**AN:**

'**Chet' is short for Ratchet.**


	4. The Discovery

**AN: I've been noticing in the view tracker that a lot of viewers seem to be just looking at this chapter. I posted Chapter 3 and 4 at the same time, so if you read chapters 1 and 2 previously and went straight to the end when you saw the update, you have skipped a chapter**.

* * *

Talwyn sat on her couch, her eyes heavy and her outfit the same as it had been two days ago, with the one addition to her wardrobe being that of her favorite pair of black, kneehigh socks. With a smiling, Lombax-shaped face sewn into the elastic at either knee, the set of footwear protected her feet from the floor's cold touch as she had frantically searched for the specific records her father had mentioned.

Now she subconsciously curled her toes in their soft embrace, taking comfort in their warmth as she continued reading what she'd uncovered.

After having learned what she sought was in the Zoni research piles that she'd already removed from the study, she had turned the whole area upside down again looking for it, literally.

Too desperate to worry about the strain it might cause on the generator, Talwyn had changed the gravity of the area again, this time deactivating it only in the hallway. She'd already needed to restart the device twice now and it was only a matter of time before it died completely. Frankly, she was surprised she was even still sitting down.

It had been worth it though, as the weightlessness and three-dimensional movement had allowed her to quickly find the data-disk series that she was after.

The set was unlike the others she'd been watching up until now though. The material was some of her father's earlier work and everything was written rather than spoken.

Most of the set's material was dry and focused solely on Fongoid research he was doing. Only briefly did it discuss working with a Lombax.

While this was still something, Talwyn had been lucky enough to also find the raw notes from her father's expedition kept together with the final drafts of the series.

These notes were Max Apogee's personal recordings. In them, the Markazian explorer described his working alongside the Lombax scientist named Kaden with all the excitement and lack of professionalism that Talwyn had come to expect from her father. More importantly, though, these notes were very personal and 'very' detailed.

Talwyn had barely slept as she'd read the journal entries with fascination. Each new entry was filled with a first hand account of Ratchet's father!

She analyzed every sentence and bookmarked every mention of Kaden, even before she was sure that this 'Kaden' actually 'was' Ratchet's father.

Talwyn didn't know how common the name was among Lombaxes. Sure he'd learned it from Alister, she once again wondered why Ratchet had never mentioned his father's, and subsequently his own, last name.

She had always just assumed that there was an emotional reason behind it, that it hurt him to think about the family name he never got to have, so she hadn't pushed the subject... but it definitely made verifying this 'Kaden's' identity a real pain.

It had taken her nearly a full day of frantic searching before she'd even been sure, but, with just a simple, off-hand comment, recorded in the journal without much note, she had found her proof. It came in the form of her Max Apogee briefly recounting Kaden's mention of a close friend named Alister Azimuth, who was a General in the Lombax Praetorian Guard.

While it might have been possible that the general Alister Azimuth had two brilliant scientist friends named Kaden, this was probably the best proof she could get and it was more than enough for her.

From what she could gather from the notes, the story went like this: her father had been exploring the ruins of an old, abandoned Fongoid city when a lone Lombax had shown up and appeared to also be investigating the ruins.

The Markazian explorer had been timid at first, but Kaden eventually approached him and it turned out that he'd actually heard the name Apogee before. This encouraged her father to talk more openly with this member of the galaxy's most powerful race and soon, the two of them were working together to archive and study the Fongoid ruins, though Kaden had seemed mostly interested in the Zoni and kept bringing up some reference to a 'clock' of some sort.

Talwyn had briefly wondered if this was a reference to The Great Clock, but she was too busy bookmarking all the parts of her father's journal that talked about Kaden directly to think about it too deeply.

With every entry she reviewed and earmarked, the young Markazian could feel her excitement rising. The journal portrayed Kaden as brilliant scientist and researcher with a slightly twisted sense of humor, but who could also tell a clever joke so dryly that her father would often miss it and have to have it explained to him.

The two only worked together for a short time before Kaden had to leave on important business, so the notes were short, but they offered an unprecedented glimpse of the father that Ratchet never knew, one only rivaled by what Alister might have offered.

Talwyn was so absorbed in reading her father's notes, with the fantasy of Kaden's reaction when she showed the journal to him, that she didn't even notice the holographic 'new message' icon floating above her communicator until she had nearly gone through them all.

With slight yawn, the young Markazian reached over and plucked the device from where it sat, half-hidden underneath a pillow.

She checked the message and found that it was from Cronk.

'_About time,'_ Talwyn thought, wondering what kind of after-adventure festivities and celebrations that had been too important to bother contacting her until now.

The message was brief, simply stating that they were all safe and on their way home, that they would debrief her on the details when they got back to the station.

Oddly enough, Cronk hadn't specified an ETA, which was unusual for him. Still, it took about a day or two to reach the station from Igliak, so she still had time to clean up before then.

Looking around the room, she realized, for the first time, that a good cleaning was desperately needed.

With a groan, the tired Markazin slowly got to her feet, feeling the soreness of a body that had been sitting for days on end, but noting with satisfaction that she barely felt the floor's cold sting through her beloved socks.

However, as she walked out of the study and began heading towards her quarters, that same floor suddenly seemed to fall away.

Talwyn immediately recognized the phenomenon as the gravity having disappeared as all was rendered weightless again.

"Oh great!" she exclaimed aloud in frustration. "Now I have to fix the gravity generator too!"

Hopefully she would just have to restart the device like the last two times, but she feared that finicky generator might have finally given out on her.

Talwyn wasn't bad with machines, but she was also no expert. She might have to pull an old, temporary backup from storage before the boys returned.

As she bounced and floated her way down the corridors and towards the generator room an idea came to her.

'_I wonder if I could get Ratchet to come out and fix the generator for me?'_ she thought. '_He is an amazing mechanic, well except for whenever he tries to 'improve' things, and I don't mind having a reason to get him out here. Then I could show him what I've been working on._'

As nice as the idea was, though, she quickly decided that, with the state of the station and herself, she would need the generator online to clean up. While it was fun to try, it wasn't very efficient to shower in zero-G, but smiled to herself at the thought all the same.

'_Besides,'_ she concluded, '_the last thing I want is Ratchet to see me looking like-'_

"Hey, Clank. Hand me that Multi-mag drill would ya?"

Talwyn froze... well stopped moving at least. In actuality, she continued to float, like a stone statue, through the air. Her ears straining, as she forgot to arrest her speed and banged her head into the ceiling.

'_I know that voice!_' she thought, not even registering the pain in her head. '_But it couldn't be! Why would 'he' be here? Why now?_'

"I do not believe that such a large amount of force is necessary, Ratchet," said another, equally familiar voice. "You could possibly strip the sealer screw if you are not careful."

"It'll be fine pal, I've taken this thing apart for Talwyn twice already!" The first voice said confidently. "Ever since she blasted it with that cannon."

"True, but, if I recall correctly, wasn't the second time because you stripped a sealer screw on the consistency coil connection the 'first' time you 'fixed' it? Then, when you restarted the device, the gravity increased to three times that of what you set it to?"

There was a short silence after that.

"Huh, I don't 'remember' that happening," came the first voice casually.

"No? Well I have the audio recording of you landing on your tail with three G's of force... if you'd like to hear it?" offered the second voice.

"Uhhhhh… no, that… that's alright," refused the first voice nervously. "But hey, could you hand me the Multi-mag 'wrench', please?"

"Certainly, Ratchet. Here you go," said the second voice, sounding pleased with themselves.

Talwyn barely registered the words themselves as they echoed down the hall towards her. Her mind was too busy fighting to process what was happening.

Her first thoughts had been of disbelief, sure that that there was no way Ratchet and Clank were in her generator room right now!

Soon, though, she realized that those voices were unmistakable. At this revelation, her thoughts quickly became ones of excitement. Ratchet was here, in her home, with her, and that was 'always' a good thing.

Reflexively, she braced her legs and prepared to push off from the ceiling and make a beeline for the two voices. She hadn't seen either in months and was eager for the reunion.

As she bent down to launch herself, however, she noticed an odd smell.

Still crouching, she looked around, searching for the source of the foul odor.

Then, to her horror, she realized that it was coming from her!

All at once the young Markazian suddenly remembered the month of obsessive searching, the weeks of slovely cloth-optional living, and the days of unhygienic study of her father's journal.

As quickly as it had come, the excitement of having Ratchet and Clank here and now suddenly turned to abject dread.

She was a mess, her home was a mess, and the one person in the galaxy that she absolutely did not want to bear witness to this horrible state was working just down the hall from her.

Immediately, Talwyn turned in a panic and pushed off from the ceiling, sending herself sailing away as fast as she could in the opposite direction of the generator room.

"That's it! She's done," came a victorious declaration from behind Talwyn. "Start 'er up, pal."

The young Markazian realized too late that she'd set her trajectory at an almost straight line in her attempt to get away as quickly as possible. A direct shot to the other end of the corridor would make her move down it faster, but until she reached the end, she would not be able to touch any of the walls to slow or stop herself.

There was a loud hum that echoed throughout the hall and suddenly, Talwyn had weight again.

She didn't fall right away, as the gravity generator was set to turn on with a slow, constant increase, so that anyone or anything caught in free float could safely land.

Talwyn was moving too fast as she descended, however, and was forced to hit the floor at an angle, sending her rolling head over tail towards the end of the corridor.

"Did you hear that, Clank?" came a very familiar and, in Talwyn's mind, terrifying voice from just around the corner.

The disoriented Markazian scrambled to her feet and ducked into the nearest utility closet. There, she remained perfectly still, barely daring to breathe.

Outside the door she could hear footsteps coming towards her before stopping.

"There's nothing here," she heard Ratchet's voice say suspiciously.

"Perhaps it was just something falling into place once gravity had been restored," offered Clank's voice.

"Maybe," said Ratchet, not sounding sure. "But wait… There's... something."

Talwyn's could feel her heart sink as she heard what sounded like someone sniffing deeply.

"There's a strange... smell," noted Ratchet's voice curiously.

"Perhaps Miss Apogee is in the vicinity? Cronk and Zephyr said she might be in this section of the station," Clank suggested, with his usual spot-on analysis.

Ratchet shook his head, "No, Talwyn's scent is different, like fruits and flowers. This one smells…" Ratchet sniffed again. "I don't really know how to describe it."

Talwyn swallowed hard. She had been lucky to be wearing her favorite body wash when she'd first met Ratchet and, knowing that Lombaxes had powerful noses, she'd always made sure to use a particularly powerful deodorant ever since then. With any luck, she'd make sure that he never know what her B.O. smelled like.

"Cronk! Zephyr! Talwyn! Are you there?" Ratchet called out, hearing his words echoed back at him, but nothing else.

After a moment, the concerned Lombax shook his head, "I don't like it, Clank, if it was one of them, they would have answered. Something else is down here. I can feel it."

"You... don't believe that an intruder is on the station, do you?" inquired Clank, with concern.

"Don't know, pal, but it wouldn't hurt to check it out. Come on."

The sound of footsteps approaching resumed and Talwyn's heart stopped again.

She was lucky that she'd made most of her way through the corridor in zero-G, as her scent hadn't been left behind as prominently, but she knew that Ratchet would sniff her out in this closet the second he got close to it.

"Wait," came Clank's cautioned tone, causing his sentient, bipedal transport to stop again. "If there really is an intruder, we should not investigate it alone. At the very least, we need to warn Cronk, Zephyr, and Miss Apogee of the danger that may be present."

Ratchet eyed the distant corridor, barely hearing Clank's words. Something about this whole thing had his fur on edge and he desperately wanted to investigate, but not just for a safety reason.

The smell was light, but somehow it filled his nostrils with something that bordered on familiarity as well as danger. It was like the strange scent was pulling him towards it.

"Ratchet?" Clank intoned, noting with familiarity the increased heart rate and tension of his companion's back.

"Y-yeah, bud… It's fine… Let's go."

And with that, Ratchet's echoing footsteps trailed off back the way he'd come as he headed for the upper levels.

Once she could no longer hear his footsteps, and even some time after that, Talwyn finally let out the huge breath of relief that she'd been holding in, gulping down air greedily as he lungs inflated for the first time in what felt like ages.

She was in the clear for now, but that wouldn't last long. She needed to get back to her room, to her clean clothes, and to a shower, before Ratchet or anyone found her.

Determined not to be found in this state, the unkempt Markazian got up from her hiding closet and began running down the corridor in the opposite direction of Ratchet and Clank.

* * *

**AN: **

**This story was initially the pilot chapter to my main series 'Days Past' and I actually commissioned an artist on DeviantArt to draw the scene on this chapter before I even really started fleshing out the story. In fact, it kind of inspired me to finish it as a semi-standalone story.**

**Anyway, artwork beautifully done by Farorest on DeviantArt and it's also where the thumbnail for this story comes from.**

**Go find the image here: wwwxdeviantartxcom/farorest/art/COM-MBIII-783039543**  
**(Replace the two x's with periods or just copy/paste that into google and it will be the first suggestion)**


	5. The Hunt

Talwyn slowly opened the maintenance hatch that led to the main level of the station. The fit was tight and rungs on the ladder she'd climbed to reach it dug into her sock-clad feet, but she had made it.

The feeling of freedom she'd had for the past month, the sensation of being able to walk all over the station in her underwear, was completely gone now. In its place, she felt naked (half-true), ashamed, and terrified that someone could be waiting around every corner.

She needed to get to her room and she needed to get there fast. She had considered going back to her father's study and collecting at least a pair of pants, or using the shower down there, but it was the opposite direction she needed to go and it was only a matter of time before Ratchet realized she wasn't on the main level and came looking for her down there.

The thought of him finding and smelling that room made 'her' feel sick.

Her only hope was to get to her room, get fresh clothes, and pretend that she was just sleeping in her room this whole time.

She was in luck, however, as the route she had chosen was actually even more efficient than the one Ratchet was likely taking up to the main level. She achieved this by taking a shortcut through the station's arboretum, where she was sure not to run into anyone else.

Quietly, she closed the maintenance hatch behind her and with as much stealth as possible, she swiftly covered the length of the halls that lead towards the main-biochamber. There she found the doorway to the garden and quickly activated the panel next to it, causing the large metal doors to part for her.

Talwyn was too busy looking over her shoulder to see what was waiting on the other side of the entrance. She nearly jumped out of her socks when the cold spray of water misted her skin.

The now damp Markazian spun around and looked at the artificial rainstorm that now blocked her path, "Oh come on!" shouted in frustration.

Of course, it figured that 'now' would be the exact time the thirty-minute watering cycle just 'happened' to be active.

'_Was it because I wanted a shower so bad?'_ she asked whatever being was playing this cruel joke on her.

Talwyn turned around again and glanced down a side hallway. She was considering her other options, when she heard the sound of metallic footsteps ringing down the main corridor in her direction.

Talwyn's eyes opened wide, '_There's no way Ratchet could have circled all the way around here by now!'_ she thought to herself, but the footsteps only got louder and were undeniable.

Without even having time to remove her favorite socks, the desperate Markazian rushed out into the squall, waving her hand over the door panel to shut it behind her. She searched around for a place to hide and found cover in a bush that was a short distance away.

Just as Talwyn ducked down into her hiding place, the door to the nursery slid open again and light flooded out onto the darkness, illuminating the rain-veiled grass and shrubbery.

Covered in sweat, water, mud, and various plant material, the poor Markazian waited without making a sound, watching through bush leaves as two figures stood forebodingly in the doorway to the arboretum.

"I know I heard someone shouting a second ago," came Cronk's voice from over the sound of falling raindrops.

"Ah, you're just hearing things again, you old windup toy," came Zephyr's reply. "You need to get your audio relays checked."

"Eh-hem," countered Cronk indignantly. "I'll have you know that I 'just' had my sonic frequency analyzers re-calibrated before we left Meridian city. Right now I can hear a pin dropping on the other side of the galaxy, and I 'know' I heard someone shout."

"Oh, is that so, 'Superbot'? Well, the only thing I can hear is the sound of you yappin', and there ain't a single thing here to make a squeak, so where is the source of this noise, hmm?"

"Ehhh… maybe they ran out into the arboretum?" Cronk offered, though he sounded unsure.

Both robots then turned to stare out into the torrents of water, eyeing the downpour with trepidation.

"Well then, you better go find them," Zephyr said flatly.

"I ain't going in there," Cronk refused. "I have enough rusty joints as it is."

"It was you what heard the noise… ifn' you're so sure someone's out there, then prove it!"

As the two warbots continued to argue, Talwyn finally realized that it was just the two of them that happened to be nearby and come to investigate.

In an instant, she felt her heart relax and her anxiety dissipate. She was fine with Cronk and Zephyr seeing her a mess. She had grown up with them and, while still embarrassing, this was hardly the worst she'd ever looked to them.

Talwyn made a move to go to them, but before she left her cover, she paused to consider how was she going to explain her situation. While she didn't mind them seeing her appearance, she knew that they'd never let her live down the embarrassment of sneaking around her own home and hiding in some muddy bush, all so that Ratchet wouldn't see her half-dressed and unwashed.

Before she could reach a decision, however, a new voice joined that of her two warbot guardians.

"There you two are!" came the very last voice that Talwyn wanted to hear at that moment. "What'd you find?"

"Nothing!" answer Zephyr immediately, an air of annoyance in his tone. "This taped-together pile of spare parts thought he heard a noise and so we came running, but there's nothing here."

Cronk was about to retort again, when Ratchet interrupted, "Alright guys, let's stay focused here," he said, not really trusting the old warbot's hearing either, but concerned all the same. "Have one of you two found Talwyn yet?"

Zephyr shrugged, "I haven't seen any trace of her, Rook. She's not in her room, but her ship was in the docking garage when we arrived. She never replied to Cronk's message either," he added, with a little concern himself.

"Do you still believe that there is an intruder on the station, Ratchet?" inquired Clank from the Lombax's back.

"An intruder!" repeated Cronk in a panic. "What if they got to Miss Talwyn! Oh, I'll never forgive you guys if anything happens to her."

Zephyr eyed his comrade, "The saying is: I'll never forgive 'myself', Cronk!" he pointed out with irritation.

But Cronk looked indignant, "Me? I was off fighting a Loki on the other side of the galaxy. How was I supposed to do anything to protect Miss Talwyn?!"

"Ya darn fool!" Zephyr shouted back. "We were 'all' there with you!"

The blue painted warbot eyed his companion for a minute as he scratched his metallic head, "Eh... are you sure?"

This time it was Zephyr who had opened his mouth to retort when Ratchet interrupted, "Guys!" the tan Lombax barked authoritatively. "Again... focus! It's possible that the Apogee Station was infiltrated, but I don't think that's the case just yet. None of the defenses have been triggered, nothing seems to be stolen or ransacked, and we all known Talwyn wouldn't have gone down without taking half the station with her."

'_Aww, he says the sweetest things,'_ Talwyn thought as she eyed the silhouette of fluffy ears and curling tail in the distance. '_Wait, no! Stay focused girl! You need to get out of this mess before they find you!'_

"Speaking from experience there, Rook?" intoned Zephyr, half-joking, half-judging.

Ratchet ignored the jab, "Alright, you two finish sweeping the main level, me and Clank will…"

But Ratchet trailed off, his face suddenly becoming pensive.

Zephyr eyed his expression, "What is it, Rook?" he asked curiously.

Ratchet turned his head this way and that, his nostrils flaring as he sniffed the air, "Do you guys smell that?" he asked, too focused on the task at hand to realize that all three of his companions were robots.

The scent was being covered up by the smell of plantlife wafting in from the arboretum and he'd been too busy dealing with Cronk and Zephyr's nonsense to notice it at first, but he could definitely detect the faint odor, exactly like what he'd sniffed out on the lower levels.

"Ratchet?" Clank pressed, knowing that his furry companion was onto something.

But the tan Lombax wasn't listening.

Ratchet moved slowly back down the hallway, following the scent for a short bit, before realizing that there was no smell of dirt or grass mixed in any further down. This meant that whoever, or whatever, had come through here had gone 'into' the arboretum, not out of it.

Ratchet walked back to the door and stood on the precipice of the biodome, heedless of the water that soaked into his clothes and fur, even as he slowly stepped into the downpour.

As he sniffed the air searchingly, a slight breeze caused by the artificial environmental systems brought to him a strong whiff of the scent.

"It's in here," Ratchet declared confidentiality, his eyes scanning the darkness with great intensity.

From her hiding place behind the bush, Talwyn could almost see the brilliant green eyes shining through rain and leaves as they swept over her. For an instant, she thought they'd come to a stop and lock with hers, before moving on again.

The young Markazian held her breath and prayed that her rapid heartbeat couldn't be heard over the rain as she fought down her panic and considered her options.

She needed to get away, but the second she left cover, Ratchet would find her. If she stayed put, her beloved Lombax and his accursed nose would sniff her out in moments. She needed to avert their attention somehow, especially Ratchet's. She needed a distraction.

With a heavy heart, Talwyn made a tough decision and carefully slid one of her favorite socks off of her leg. Silently, she dropped a palm-sized stone down into the long tube of fabric and began to spin it in her hand.

Careful not to go too quickly, or to touch anything else that might make a sound, she got the impromptu sling up to a decent speed, before launching it out into the darkness of the arboretum.

Several seconds later, she heard the gratifying splash of her well-aimed projectile striking the unseen pond at the center of the biodome.

"Ah-Ha!" yelled Cronk with vindication. "I knew it! There 'is' someone here. Let's go get'em!"

"Right behind ya," chimed Zephyr, gung-ho in an instant, and together the two of them dashed headlong into the watery veil, weapons raised as they shouted their warcry of "Ahhhhhhhh!"

Ratchet was caught off guard by both the sound of the splash and the sudden charge of his companions. He hesitated, still eyeing the area with suspicion, but eventually followed after them at a quick, but measured pace. His large, green eyes and cat-like ears still tuned to every sight and sound in the arboretum as he searched for his quarry.

When the tan Lombax finally passed, however, Talwyn didn't even bother to let out a sigh of relief.

Instead, with all the skills of a Markazian ninja, she strode over the soft ground, her heavy sock on one foot and her bare toes sinking into the mud, until she reached the still open doorway and exited back out into the now empty corridor.

Here, she finally allowed herself to breathe. She took a short moment to refill her lungs, before tearing off down the hall towards the living quarters, the sound of wet footsteps reverberating off the walls as she put everything she had into sprinting this last-leg of her escape.

She'd overheard Cronk and Zephyr saying that they'd checked her room already and that they knew she wasn't there, so she decided to head for the master bedroom instead.

Talwyn had a shower attached to her own room, but it wasn't uncommon for her to use the larger shower or jacuzzi tub in the master bath. There would be towels in there that she could cover up with when and she was done and with any luck, she would be able to convince everyone that she'd just been in there taking a nice, long, soak.

From a series of windows that looked out into the arboretum from the hallway, she could briefly make out the forms of Cronk and Zephyr by the pool edge, likely debating about who should go for a swim to see if someone had jumped in.

Her heart was pounding against her chest now. The adrenaline of nearly being caught, mixed with the excitement of being home free, was almost enough to overwhelm her, but she kept herself under control, telling herself that escape was literally just around the corner.

The sleeping quarters area was dark when Talwyn got there, but she didn't dare turn on the lights, which wasn't an issue for her, since she knew the space station like the back of her hand.

With practiced familiarity, the young Markazian made her way through the inky blackness and felt her way along the wall until she found the keypad to the main bedroom.

She let out a sigh of relief and relaxed a little as she keyed in the access code.

"You know, mud leaves a 'very' obvious trail of footprints," came a heart-stoppingly familiar voice from out of the darkness.

Before Talwyn could say a word, she felt something small but very strong crash into her side, knocking the wind from her lungs and slamming her to the ground.

The besieged Markazian tried to escape, but powerful hands gripped her on the arm and around the waist and grappled her down.

"Clank, get the lights!" Ratchet shouted as he attempted to subdue the surprisingly slender intruder.

"I cannot, Ratchet!" Clank called back apologetically, his optical receptors set to low-light mode as he stared up at the light switch on the wall. "My vertical specifications will not allow me to access this panel."

Ratchet didn't respond, though, he only growled and grunted as his opponent attempted to push him off of them and get out of his grip. He took the wrists of their two hands and held them tight. His opponent didn't seem to have any extra arms, fangs, or tentacles, but they were a bit taller than him. He was used to that, however, and so he pinned their arms to the ground and put his knee into what he hoped was their stomach.

The intruder continued to writhe beneath him, desperate to escape, but oddly not making as sound, though their efforts were futile.

With the aid of his heli-pack, Clank finally managed to jump high enough to activate the lights, while being careful not to cut a groove into the wall.

In an instant, the empty darkness evaporated and light filled every corner of the hall.

Talwyn looked up, finding exactly what she feared most: Ratchet's face looking down at her in confusion. It was too late now, he could see everything. Exhaustion and utter shame washed over her and she stopped struggling.

It had taken a moment for the dumbfounded Lombax's eyes to adjust to the light and then another moment for him to understand exactly what he was looking at. He was face-to-face with Talwyn, her expression blank and despondent, as he felt her body go limp beneath him in defeat.

Still confused, he looked her over, seeing her wet hair strewn messily over her face and the floor. She was breathing heavily from her exertions, her soaked T-shirt clinging tightly to her bare chest as it rose up and down in time with her deep, wheezing breaths.

Reflexively, Ratchet inhaled through his nose and was at once hit with both the power of Talwyn's scent and the stunning realization that it was the same one he'd been tracking this whole time. The smell was so strong that it almost made him dizzy.

"T-Tal?" he asked dimly, his mind in a daze.

Talwyn felt her heart sink at the use of her name. It was over now, Ratchet could see the complete mess she was, even worse now, after she'd mucked through the rainy arboretum.

The real soul-crusher, however, came from the way his nostrils were flared. She knew that he could smell her, the scent of several days' worth of unwashed B.O., and from the stupefied look on his face, he was too horrified to believe it.

She felt cold. Not from the rain, but from the terrible feeling of Ratchet's disgust. All the strength had left her body and she just lay there, unable to do or say anything.

But then she felt the grip on her wrists relax slightly and, in an autonomic reflex that was somehow a mix of both flight 'and' fight, the pinned Markazian drove her forehead upward, headbutting the unsuspecting Lombax with all the force she could muster.

Ratchet's head spun from the impact, stunning him long enough for Talwyn to throw him off of her.

By the time he could even see straight again, she had disappeared through the now open bedroom door and had slammed it shut with the control panel on the other side.

As Ratchet stared at the now sealed doorway in confusion, he heard the deadbolt slide home.

Clank walked up to Ratchet, his head equal in height to his companion's sitting position, "Oh dear… Ratchet, I believe we may have made a mistake."


	6. The (Mis)Understanding

Talwyn stood unmoving under the torrent of liquid coming from the showerhead above. The water was warm and soothing, but she felt none of its pleasant effects as her mind focused only on the surprised and likely disgusted look she'd seen on Ratchet's face in that brief instant. It had been worse than she'd feared.

Her shoulders slumped and she slowly tilted her head up to let the cleansing streams hit her in the face. She briefly considered just opening her mouth and drowning herself from sheer embarrassment. At least then she wouldn't have to face him once she finally left the shower.

Once again, the mental image of what she must have looked like when the lights had come on returned to the forefront of her thoughts and she felt her tail curl in embarrassment.

Once again, she reached over and picked up her shower sponge. She began scrubbing her body with intense determination, as if she could wash away the grime of the past too.

She knew it was futile, though. She couldn't stay in the shower forever and she would have to see Ratchet again eventually.

'_Maybe he'll understand?'_ she thought with desperate hope. '_I mean, he's not exactly the cleanest creature in the galaxy.'_

Talwyn smiled slightly that the memories of Ratchet and Clank showing up while on an adventure or mission completely covered in muck and alien goo from fate knows where.

But the young Markazian's lips quickly reversed into a frown. Who was she kidding? All those times had been a result of some extreme circumstances. What was her excuse now? That pants had been too far away to use? That the floor was too cold to ever leave her couch? That she was too focused on her research to go take a shower for a week?

"Ughhhh!" Talwyn groaned aloud, throwing her sponge on the wet shower floor and sending water droplets in all directions with the force of her frustration.

A series of knocks against the door on the other side of the massive bathroom broke the young Markazian from her lamenting.

"I know I'm using up all the hot water, Zeph!" Talwyn shouted at the interruption. "But I assure you, I need 'all' of it."

Despite her argument, she heard the distant sound of the door opening.

She glanced at the large, frosted glass door that separated the large shower and bath area from the rest of the bathroom, "I'm fine Cronk. We'll talk about it later, I promise," she insisted.

'_If you remember,' _she then added to herself, comforted in the knowledge that most awkward conversations could be avoided altogether, so long as she put them off long enough.

Through the haze of steam, Talwyn noticed a figure step up to the opaque glass door. It was shorter than her and tan-colored.

"It's, uh… It's me, Tal," Ratchet began awkwardly.

In an instant, Talwyn's numbed senses came back to her and she quickly threw her hands up over her private areas, backing deeper in the shower, despite knowing that nothing could be seen through the frosted glass.

"R-R-Ratchet!" she stammered in disbelief. "What… What are you doing here?!"

"I, uh… I brought you a fresh change of clothes," he answered, unsure of what to say. "Well I mean, Cronk did, er… Cronk gave them to me, to bring to you, but I… I 'brought' them."

There was short silence where only the constant hiss of water spray made any noise.

"Thank you, Ratchet," Talwyn said eventually, relaxing a little and returning to the shower head now that the surprise was passed. "You can leave them on the rack by the door."

Through the frosted glass, Talwyn saw Ratchet's outline nod, reach over and place the clothes on the rack, but he didn't leave afterward.

For another long few seconds, there was silence again. Ratchet could see nothing, but Talwyn was staring intently at his obscure form. Reflexively, she reached down and picked up her tail, nervously lacing the tip between her fingers as she wondered what he could possibly be thinking right now.

"Hey, Talwyn," the Lombax began suddenly, his voice sounding serious and the outline of his ears drooping slightly in a way that said he was upset about something.

A shot of ice went through Talwyn's shower-warmed veins when she saw this. Ratchet was rarely ever serious. The last time she'd seen that posture and heard that tone, he'd told her that he wanted to go home to Veldin and sort some things out.

She gulped fearfully. Maybe this was the time where he told her just how disgusted she made him, how he couldn't get her putrid stench out of his nose, and that he didn't want to see her again. Maybe he was leaving again, for good this time.

Talwyn held her breath, and when she didn't respond, Ratchet took a deep breath of his own, "Tal, I'm… I'm sorry I attacked you," he apologized, remorse ladened heavily in his voice.

The young Markazian was caught off guard by the words and reflexively responded with a confused, "W-what?"

Ratchet's outline lower its head even further in shame, "I didn't know it was you," he pleaded. "I thought… I thought there was an intruder, and it was dark, so I… Tal, I'm so sorry."

It took a moment, but eventually, Talwyn realized that he was talking about tackling her outside in the hallway.

"Oh… oh!" she intoned, as the reality struck her fully. "Oh no, I'm… I'm not mad about that," she said quickly.

Even over the sound of the shower, Talwyn heard Ratchet gulped, "But… you weren't, uh… you weren't even properly… you know..."

The young Markazian saw Ratchet's outline motion over his chest and her face warmed to a temperature beyond what the shower was set to, "No, it's fine!" she assured him hastily, before reconsidering her words. "I mean, of course, I'd rather you 'not' do that... but 'I' was the one sneaking around like some kind of thief in the dark. It's not your fault."

Talwyn heard Ratchet let out a huge breath and she saw his figure slump in relief, "Oh, that's good," he breathed as he sank to his knees.

After a moment, he turned and sat down on the bathroom floor, putting his back to the frosted window, "I thought you were furious with me."

"Really?" the surprised Markazian asked, smiling despite herself. She hadn't been expecting Ratchet to be the one to end up apologizing for anything, "And why's that?"

Through the door, she could see Ratchet reach up and touch his slightly bruised eye, "Well... you seemed pretty mad at the time," he said, with an almost cheerful tone.

Instinctually, Talwyn reached up and touched the spot on her forehead where she'd headbutted Ratchet in her desperate attempt to escape. She'd been feeling numb ever since she'd been seen and now she winced as she felt it throb for the first time.

"That… that was because you surprised me," she explained, suddenly embarrassed again. "I wasn't expecting you guys to be home so soon. Had I know you were here, I never would have… have…"

'_Dressed like a slob and left the lower levels a mess,'_ she finished in her mind, not wanting to say the words aloud.

There was another short silence between them.

"Uh, yeah… about that," said Ratchet, his outline scratching the back of his head nervously.

Confident that she was going to have a heart attack at a young age, Talwyn felt the organ in her chest skip a beat yet again. She was certain he was going to break the bad news to her this time and her grip on her tail tightened fearfully.

"It turns out that Cronk messed up the holo-message," he continued, once again sounding apologetic. "Apparently he found an entry field in the messenger program for a message delay function that said to enter what time he wanted the message to arrive, but he misread it and put our ETA in 'there' instead of in the wording itself. That's why you only got the message today… when we arrived."

Ratchet's ears picked up the soft thud of something soft hitting the hard tile of the shower wall, "Uh, Talwyn?" he asked with concern.

"Ugh! Why, Cronk?!" the tormented Markazian groaned with her face pressed against the wall.

Ratchet couldn't help but smile a little at the reaction, "Yeah, Zeph was tearing into him pretty good about it too," he continued, before working up his best Zephyr impression, "You dag-gone fool! How can you not even know how to send a simple holo-message?! You're a robot for crying out loud!"

To Ratchet's relief, he heard a slight laugh from inside the shower, "That certainly sounds like Zephyr," Talwyn said feeling a little better.

Encouraged, the tan Lombax continued his retelling in the angry warbot's voice, "Wait, don't tell me this is why we never got those tickets to see Lance and Janice live?! You said you sent in the order the day they went on sale, but the day of the show we got a message saying they were all sold out. You put the date of the show we wanted in that stupid delay function too, didn't you?!"

This time Ratchet heard more laughter and he began to laugh a little too, before pressing on, "How do you think Miss Talwyn feels, getting caught with her pants literally down like that?"

This time Ratchet's retelling was met with deadpan silence, permeated only by the ever constant stream of shower water, making the tan Lombax wince at his own stupid mistake.

The awkward quiet lingered on for several moments.

A few times Ratchet got the urge to apologize, but somehow felt that would only make things worse, so he simply waited

Slowly, Talwyn raised her head up from the wall, still painfully embarrassed by everything, but fully aware that the reality of what happened wasn't going away, no matter how hard she tried.

The only thing she could do now was to try and move forward and hope everyone can forget what they'd seen… or smelled.

Mechanically, she reached over and picked up a large, familiar plastic bottle that was full of orange-colored gel. This fruity body wash had been the same kind she'd been wearing when she'd first met Ratchet and she'd been extra careful to use it regularly whenever she was around him.

She'd actually already washed herself with this once earlier, but she typically did it three times each session, before using a Wargrok-strength roll-on deodorant to seal it.

Talwyn sighed at the thought of how all her hygienic vigilance had been wasted, but then reminded herself again that she had to move forward.

Ratchet, still debating about whether to apologize or not, immediately recognized the painfully fruity odor the instant its container had been opened.

"Is that your usual soap?" he asked, forgetting the awkward silence completely.

Talwyn hesitated, afraid of what this topic of conversation might lead to, "Uh, yeah… it is," she answered simply.

Ratchet wrinkled his nose at the stingingly citrus stench, "It's because you always wear that stuff that I didn't realize that it was 'your' scent that I was tracking earlier," he continued.

"Y-yeah, that's 'kind of' the point," Talwyn replied, trying to sound amused at the question, despite feeling wretched at the train of thought.

He had always known that the fruity odor which Talwyn always reeked of was not her real scent, but he tightened his jaw to keep himself from speaking the words that were now on the tip of his tongue.

"Don't worry, though," Talwyn continued reassuringly, "I swear that this was a one-time thing. I know… I know that Lombaxes have sensitive noses. I'll make sure that I'm… that 'this' doesn't happen again."

Again, Ratchet's teeth clenched, but he failed to stop his impulse, "I… don't mind," he breathed quietly, immediately hating himself for letting the words slip and hoping desperately that she hadn't heard him.

There was silence for a few seconds, then Ratchet heard the terrifying sound of bare feet walking over wet tile, "Wha-what was that?" Talwyn's voice asked, much closer than before.

Ratchet closed his eyes and cursed himself again. He knew that he should pretend he hadn't said anything, before he said something he regretted, but his desire to answer truthfully was too strong, "I… I 'like' the way you smell… the 'real' you, I mean."

Before the words had even left his lips, the tan Lombax felt the burning heat of his own embarrassment under his skin. He was sure that his face was probably glowing red, even through his fur, and he immediately put his hands up over his face, while his ears reflexively drooped down as if they too were trying to hide him from view.

Ratchet knew what he sounded like at the moment. Very few races had an affinity for scents like Lombaxes did and very few others understood it. He'd always hated the burning smell of citrus that Talwyn always wore, but he never said anything for fear of what she would think.

But it was different now. When he had first whiffed the scent in the lower levels of the station, he hadn't known what to think. All he knew was that it stirred something inside him and had assumed that it was just the smell of danger. Maybe that was still true, but when he'd realized that the scent had been Talwyn's, everything seemed to click.

Now he couldn't get it out of his head, neither the image of her lightly dressed and soaking wet, her hair strewn wildly around her on the floor and over her face, nor the piercing smell of her body. Ratchet wanted to drown in that smell and the thought of it being lost again behind that putrid cloud of artificial fruit had simply been too much for the young Lombax to handle.

Now he waited fearfully for her response, regretting every word that had escaped his stupid mouth as his mind filled terrible expectation.

From where Talwyn was standing, she could see Ratchet's curled form, almost half his normal size, as he balled up at the foot of the shower door with his ears drooping low. She immediately recognized the look of embarrassment and fought to try and process what she'd just heard.

The confused Markazian looked down at the bottle of body wash in her hand, '_Was he telling her not to wear this?'_ she asked herself, the idea inherently outrageous to her. She had spent so long desperately lathering it onto her body that the thought of Ratchet having disliked it all this time was hard to accept.

The silence continued to drag on for a painfully long time. Too painful for the young Lombax.

Reaching his limit, Ratchet quickly got to his feet, "I just meant, don't worry about it… so much," he said, trying to recover nervously. "If… if you're just being careful for 'my' sake, that is."

Talwyn was still trying to wrap her head around his previous words when she looked up to see his tan-tinged form shrink from the window. Again she fought to think straight and she hesitated with a response.

"Well… I'll, uh… let you get back to your shower," Ratchet said, moving swiftly for the exit.

"Ratchet, wait!" Talwyn finally called out, moving towards the frosted glass door impulsively.

Ratchet froze with his hand on the bathroom entrance panel, face furrowed as he braced himself for what was coming, "Yeah, Tal?"

"If… if you have a moment later, there's something I want to show you," she said, her voice sounding soft and trailing.

"Uh, yeah, sure. I've got time," Ratchet answered, unsure of how he should take what she said. "Just uh… come get me whenever you're ready."

Talwyn nodded, unseen, behind the glass door, "O-ok."

And with that, the tan-furred Lombax took a deep breath and walked out of the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.

The second it was closed, however, he put his hands to his face and groaned his sorrow to the galaxy.

'_Why did I do that?!'_ he demanded of himself, still unable to believe that he'd blurted out something so embarrassing.

A Markazian's sense of smell was nothing compared to a Lombax's! There was absolutely no way that Talwyn could understand what someone's scent meant to him.

Best case scenario, she just thinks he's weird now. Worst case: she probably thinks he's a massive super-pervert with a B.O. fetish. She was probably sick to her stomach on the other side of that glass. So disgusted that she had been rendered speechless.

Ratchet ran his hands through his scalp fur and pulled on his ears in frustration.

She'd said that she wanted to meet up later to 'show him something'. Was she going to tell him how gross she thought he was? Or that if she ever caught him sniffing within ten feet of her, she'd put a blaster bolt in him?

If she'd said 'talk' he'd have been sure of it, but she had said 'show', so what did that mean?

The tormented Lombax violently ruffled his scalp and ears again, before finally letting out a long sigh of defeat and walking away.

Ratchet made his way to the hangar with the hope that some mechanical work on the ships might take his mind off of it, fully aware that the reality of what happened wasn't going away, no matter how hard he tried.

* * *

Talwyn had her hands pressed up on the smooth surface of the frosted glass door, her fingers rubbing lines from the steam outline of where Ratchet's back had been a moment ago, her mind still grappling with what she'd just been told.

She was the daughter of renowned Lombax researcher, Maxwell Apogee, and even before her month-long marathon of Lombax research, which had reiterated the fact several times, she had always known that Lombaxes had sensitive noses and that scent was an important part of their culture.

However, she also knew that there was more to it than that. To a Lombax, how someone smelled was just as important, if not more than, what they looked like. Some of her father's researched detailed popular Lombax dating programs that matched prospective couples together by scent compatibility alone.

In spite of knowing this, or perhaps 'because' of it, Talwyn had desperately kept her scent hidden, believing that always smelling like fruit would be preferred to her natural odor.

But now Ratchet knew what she smelled like, and not just her normal smell either, but her old-clothed, no-shower, zero-perfumed smell. It had been absolutely, one-hundred percent her own scent… and Ratchet had just told her that he 'liked' it.

Talwyn's feelings were conflicting as she turned and pressed her back against the door, her eyes looking up vaguely at the swirling steam-filled air. In her head, she knew that the idea was repulsive, that the thought of someone being attracted to her sweat and stink was weird and foreign…

'_So then, why was the thought of it so 'hot'?'_ she wondered, as she closed her eyes and let her mind wander, while warm mist caressed her bare skin.

Before any other part of her could wander, however, Talwyn's eyes shot open and she stood up straight.

"No! I need to focus," she said aloud, before marching her way over to the shower control and turning to temperature 'way' down.

The hot shower spray suddenly turned into an icy downpour and the jolt of cold immediately brought the lightheaded Markazian back to her senses.

She had already told Ratchet that she would show him something. She was committed, now, to giving him the journal that her father had made and the information she'd gathered about Kaden. That had to be her top priority.

There was still work to do. She would need to clean up the study first, for sure, and there was still a little bit of unread journal left that she wanted to go through and make sure there weren't any more mentions of Alister in there.

With a nod of determination, Talwyn finally decided that she'd been in the shower long enough. She let the refreshing spray of chilled water wash over her face one long last time, before she turned it off and exited the shower.

In the racks to her side, just as Ratchet had said, was a full suit of her regular, 'clean' clothes. She nodded her thanks to it, before turning the other way and moving to the auto-dryer.

Before she activated it, however, she finally noticed the fruity soap bottle that was still clutched in her hand.

Talwyn stared at the container for several long seconds, recounting and reconsidering everything that had happened.

Then, she tossed it in the nearby trash can and made a mental note to get scentless body wash on the next supply trip.

* * *

**AN: To anyone who doesn't know, In Search of Days Past was meant to be part of a set of Ratchet and Clank, main-cast short stories. My primary Fanfiction series is focused mainly on Ratchet's father, Kaden, so I figured I'd try to write some short stories with a more broad and general appeal. I also wanted to switch it up after writing the same thing for years.**

**Anyway, my point is that I was planning on making at least two more short stories after this one. I currently have a few summaries on my profile page of possible stories and when I post the final chapter of In Search of Days Past, I will put up a poll to let everyone vote on the one I write next.**

**The reason the poll isn't active now, however, is that I am still welcoming any suggestions for short story premises. If you have an idea for an interesting story/plot involving one or more main-cast R&C characters, AU or otherwise, please send me a message about. Don't worry if you can't think of every detail, I don't need much to go off of. A few sentences explaining what happens, or even just how it starts, is more than enough.**


	7. The Past

_Day 72 of the Fongoid City Dig._

_It's been just over two weeks now since Kaden first showed up. Today I awoke from where I'd hidden my tent and supplies and carefully began surveying the situation… only to find 'him' casually eating breakfast in our usual spot._

_Bewildered, I crept up to him and asked what he was doing, to which he responded in that ever disinterested tone of his that he was 'eating breakfast'._

_I swear, he does this to get under my skin._

_"What about the Agorians?", I say, but he just shrugged like he either wasn't sure or didn't care._

_Knowing I would get no straight answer from Kaden, I quickly climbed the makeshift lookout nest I'd made during my first few days here and when I peered out over the valley._

_After the raiding party had shown up last night, I thought we were done for._

_It was clear that their target was the nearby Fongoid settlement that lay just outside the city and we could easily see what they were doing down in the valley with our spy glasses._

_The scrawny-legged barbarians hadn't spotted us yet, but it was only a matter of time before they ransacked the village and swept the ruins in search of escaped villagers._

_Had the brutes even a handful of brain cells among them, they'd know the Fongoid people would never go back into their abandoned cities, even to save their lives._

_There was a whole fleet of those talon fighters in the sky as well. We'd be shot down in a heartbeat if either of us tried to take off in our ships._

_Well, I've never run so fast in my life! Maybe I 'am' putting on a little weight? I quickly set about hiding my gear and hunkering down, hoping that the Agorians would pass us over and leave once they were done, they don't have the best scanning technology... or patience._

_As I'm 'freaking out', however, Kaden comes up to me and says, "We should do something about them."_

_At first, I thought he was just giving voice to the frustration that we both felt at seeing those good people suffer. I mean, what could a single Lombax scientist and one Markazian explorer do against an entire army of blood-thirsty killers?_

_Turns out, a lot more without the Markazian!_

_As the sunrise illuminated the vast valley below, I spotted dozens of smoking craters as far as the eye could see. Each one filled with the burnt-out remains of a crashed Talon or Agorian hydra-tank. The Warband had been completely annihilated!_

_All the while, as I'm looking through my binoculars, jumping up and down and half-shouting, half-babbling about what I'm seeing, this tan-furred psychopath is just sitting there eating his food without a care. He even has the audacity to shout back at me, "Must have been 'some' storm last night," as if it wasn't as clear as the cloudless sky above that he did it!_

_I tell ya, that's the last time I underestimate even a single Lombax._

_I wasn't really sure what to say or do about it after that, so I just wandered over to the fire and sat down. Kaden causally hands me a hot bowl of rehydrated food and a spoon. Again, acting as if nothing out of the ordinary has occurred._

_Two weeks ago I would have pressed the issue, but I fear I've already become desensitized to this kind of outlandish reality._

_With breakfast taken care of, we began our daily routine of discussing our plans for the coming days. __Kaden tells me he wants to investigate the collapsed Zoni temple on the far end of the main strip. _

_I told him that I too had been wanting to investigate that place, but my old secondhand, junkheap of a scanner had burned out just the other day. The integrity of that building's supports were so degraded that without a thorough scan of its structural weak points and few dabs of binding cement, I wouldn't dare step foot within it._

_Of course, I had known just how important a good, quality scanner would be for this expedition before I started it, I'm no amateur, but let's just say that my holo-disks on Drophyd courtship rituals did not turn as much of a profit as one might have hoped._

_Without a functioning scanner, I'm restricted to collecting the artifacts and translating runes found out in the open. Unfortunately, there aren't usually a whole lot of exciting finds to be had like that._

_I mentioned this much to Kaden, and sadly, wished him luck on his search, but that's when he said something that didn't make sense._

_Well, in fairness, Kaden frequently says a lot of things that don't make a lick of sense, but this was the first time he did so 'and' I understood all the words he used._

_He tells me that he had been hoping to borrow 'my' scanner to look through the ruins. He then says that, if I didn't mind, could he take a look at it to maybe see if he could fix it._

_Now, asking to borrow equipment is standard practice among archeologists and explorers, we're not a particularly wealthy bunch and we need to work together. But, I say that this doesn't make sense from 'Kaden', because over the past few days I've witnessed this particular Lombax pull out every sort of strange device one could imagine._

_He has digging tools the size of water coolers that could do the work of an entire mining rig in just a few hours. He has burrowing, robotic worms that crawl through the dirt and locate delicate artifacts, encasing them in protective shells so that they wouldn't be damaged when he later blasted apart the area, allowing him to just walk around and pick up said artifacts as if they were pieces of fallen fruit! He even put together his whole campsite in just a few seconds using a couple of small boxes that could be carried one-handed._

_So, when he asked me to borrow my scanner array, my first thought was, 'the bloody heck does he need my piece of junk for?' Sure, my scanner was a high-fidelity, wide-range scanning array, designed specifically to look through any kind of material one could imagine, but I refuse to believe that he didn't have one of the galaxy's most advanced scanning modules hidden up his tail hole! It's where he pulls everything else out of._

_'Course, I wasn't about to say that to 'this' man. Forgetting the Agorian thing, I've seen what he can do to an entire dilapidated building with what I thought had been a box of breath mints! I'm not very eager to see what he might do to a young, handsome, and promising Markazian explorer, out in the middle of nowhere._

_So, I says to him, "Have at it," and handed the cursed thing over. It was busted anyway and it probably would have cost the same amount of bolts to repair as to get a new one of a similar grade, so it was no loss to me really._

_Well, next thing I know, that crazy furball takes apart my microwave and uses it to rebuild the blasted scanner, better than new! And I mean that literally. The thing worked like a charm, much better than any scanner of that grade had a right to._

_When I see this, without thinking I say "Kaden, you're a genius, you know that?" and without missing a beat, the fellow replies with a simple, "Yes."_

_I'm shaking my head as I write this. I can't tell if this Lombax is arrogant, or just really good at playing the part. To his credit, though, he's the first man I've ever met who fully warranted the title, so perhaps he isn't arrogant and, as he said, is just aware of it._

_Or maybe he's just screwing with a poor adventure's head for laughs! Even after two weeks I still can't tell when he's being serious or not!_

_Anyway, we finished preparing for our dig and spent the rest of the day exploring the Zoni temple together, identifying weak structural points with the new and improved scanner, before shoring them up so that they won't collapse while we excavated the site._

_We split the work, each of us taking turns scanning an area and marking weaknesses, before handing the device over and setting about fixing them._

_I say 'split', but Kaden has his own personal army of tiny, spider-like maintenance bots at his command. I think I heard him called one of them Brad, or something._

_I would quickly scan a section of the temple and hand the device over to him before getting to work on my 'room'. Then, once I'd finished securing it, I'd go to where he was to get it back from him... only to find the whole rest of the 'wing' had been completely reinforced!_

_This only proved my suspicions though._

_There's no way my tiny, bargain-bin scanner could have covered all that area in such a short amount of time, even 'with' the improvements Kaden had made to it. This Lombax clearly had his own scanners and never needed mine in the first place._

_But that then begs the question, 'why did he bother asking for it in the first place?'_

_My only guess is that this was his way of secretly fixing the thing for me without making me feel like I was causing him trouble. Looking back, I had been complaining about the hunk of junk ever since it broke, because it really put a limit on what I could safely explore in these ruins._

_Maybe underneath his brilliant mind and dry tone, Kaden actually has a heart of gold?_

_That.. or he was just preemptively stopping me from asking to borrow his. Ha, I wouldn't put it past him!_

_Seriously though, I can't figure this guy out at all. Brilliant, yet mysterious, with just a hint of crazy. Makes me think that I should be studying Lombaxes instead. They're just as confounding as these ticking tribals who abandoned advanced technological cities for no discernible reason, and much more entertaining too, now that I've met one like Kaden._

_As for the temple itself, I was able to recover a few interesting artifacts that..._

* * *

Ratchet's eyes were wide as he hung on every word of Max Apogee's journal.

The young Lombax hadn't been sure how he'd felt when Talwyn first showed him the notes her father had written so many years ago.

Ratchet had spent so much time pretending that the life he never had wasn't important to him. When Tachyon had shown up, he finally learned about the fate of his race, and eventually met Alister, a Lombax who personally knew the family he never had.

But Alister had been reluctant to say much about his father, or anything about the Lombaxes, for that matter. Alway dismissing the subject by saying, "How relevant is the past when it can be changed?"

When Alister had died, the only connection to his past had suddenly been severed, and Ratchet had felt alone. More so than he'd ever felt before, despite being an orphan his entire life.

In that grief, he had decided to return to Veldin, just wanting some time to sort out all the crazy that his life had been ever since that day he'd left it with Clank. There, he'd begun to wonder if maybe he'd have been better off staying on that lonely mudball of a planet, having never learned about his past, just to lose it tragically.

But now...

'_So this was my father,'_ he thought to himself yet again, marveling at the antics of a man he was at once so close to, yet farther away from than any galaxy.

Reflexively, Ratchet reached forward to flip the virtual page on the journal, eager to read the next section that Talwyn had bookmarked for him, when he felt a sudden pressure on top of his head and against his side.

However, the young Lombax didn't even flinch. He just smiled to himself, not even having to look to know what it was, the gentle, rhythmic breathing and familiar shape of Talwyn telling him everything.

The tired Markazian had been trying desperately to stay awake with him, even as she'd begun fading in and out. Ratchet had tried to get her to go to bed, even offering to look at the journal with her later, but she stubbornly refused, insisting that she wasn't actually tired and that she was fine.

"I told ya, Tal," the smug Lombax grinned up at her. He tried to shake his head in mock disappointment, but stopped when he realized he couldn't

Not wanting to wake her, the young Lombax carefully slid over a bit, cradling Talwyn's sleeping form with his hands to stop her from falling. He then slowly lowered her down until her head had moved off of his and down to his shoulder.

His intention had been to keep going until he could lay the sleeping Markazian out flat on the couch, however, as he attempted the second transition, Talwyn unconsciously turned her head and brushed her hair into his face.

Ratchet's whole body froze. It was faint, and at first, he had trouble believing what his nose was telling him, but the scent was unmistakable.

When he and Talwyn had first entered the study, she had smelled as she always did, like an artificial fruit tree was covered in soap. The fake fragrance had been milder than usual, but he hadn't thought much of it at the time.

By now, however, the smell of citrus had faded greatly, allowing Talwyn's natural scent to begin seeping through. Ratchet could tell with one whiff that she hadn't adhered to her usual regime of coating herself in an impenetrable shield of fruity odor.

Realizing this, the young Lombax swallowed hard and fought to keep himself calm. Despite this, he could feel his heart pumping violently in his chest and his fur standing on end. Slowly, he turned his head away from Talwyn, preventing himself from breathing her in too deeply.

As much as he wanted to, it just felt wrong to enjoy Talwyn's sweet scent while she was asleep. To him, it would have been like looking at somebody's body while they were unconscious, which he was also careful not to do.

He also didn't want to jump to conclusions as to what this meant, either. It was possible that she had simply run out of her usual cleaning products.

Still, it was becoming very hard, er… 'difficult', for him not to think about it now, what with her head resting just inches from his nose, her soft breathing making his fur wave back and forth in time with her gentle rise and fall.

Swallowing again, Ratchet carefully turned back to Talwyn's face, mindful not to breathe through his nose as he did.

With their height difference, he was sure that his shoulder couldn't have been very comfortable, but Talwyn seemed to be cozy where she was and it didn't seem to be worth the risk to disturb her now.

Assuring himself that he wasn't just doing it because he wanted to, the young Lombax resigned himself to being a temporary pillow and leaned back against the couch.

Now comfortable himself, and with nowhere to go, Ratchet turned the small holo-screen projector over in his hand. The journal contained within the tiny device could never come close to replacing Alister, but it meant that his father's memory was no longer lost completely.

Talwyn turned slightly in her sleep, nuzzling deeper into the soft fur on Ratchet's neck.

When Ratchet's nerves had finally calmed back down, he began to think about how hard it must have been for her to find the recordings.

He himself had never even met 'his' father and even this small, third-person account of the man was an emotional journey. He could only imagine what she must have gone through to find it, going through all of her missing father's research and personal notes like that.

And then there was the sheer amount of time it must have taken to locate.

Ratchet had noticed the dust lines in the hallway that led from the study to the various rooms around it. He wasn't sure how much more research data was stored behind those adjacent doors, but he was sure that it must have been a lot if they'd all had such a well-worn path in the dust made to them.

Even more telling, however, was the fact that the whole room smelled faintly of Talwyn's scent. He hadn't said anything, sure that Talwyn's nose couldn't tell it was there and not wanting to embarrass himself further after what he'd said in the bathroom.

When he'd first entered the study, he had seen the dust lines near the vents and the magnetic holding straps tucked away in the corner. These two things told him she'd tried to vent the room in an attempt to clean out the smell, but her scent was still everywhere. The fact that her smell had seeped so deeply into everything, showed just how much time she must have spent in this room.

As a side note, he also realized she must not have used any strong cleaning solutions or air fresheners in consideration of his sensitive nose.

With a soft smile, Ratchet glanced over at Talwyn's sleeping face again, only now realizing what she'd done for him.

But then his smile faded as he began to think about the last time he'd seen her… the time he'd told her he wanted to go home to Veldin… and then just left when she'd cried.

A sharp pain stabbed through Ratchet's chest as guilt racked his body, '_How could I be so stupid?!'_ he demanded of himself, ashamed of what he'd done.

He'd spent all this time moping about a family he'd never had and a race of people in an entirely different dimension, when there were people who cared so much about him right here in 'this' dimension and in 'this' life.

The young Lombax simply sat there, pained by regret and wishing he could do things over… but that line of thinking reminded him of Alister and the ache in his heart redoubled.

But, as time ticked on, he felt the gentle warmth and aromatic scent that radiated off of Talwyn next to him, slowly feeling comforted by her presence, until his pain had dulled.

Once again, Ratchet looked down at the small holo-journal. Even after he'd left the way he did, Talwyn had still gone through so much trouble for him. All, just to give him this little scrap of life he never knew.

The young Lombax finally realized that while this whole time he'd been thinking of nothing but his race, his past, and his loss, Talwyn had been thinking of him.

'_I need to find a way to thank her,' _he thought, turning his guilt into determination and looking down at the holo-journal again. '_For everything that she's done for me… but what could I give her? What does 'she' want?'_

Ratchet wasn't sure and, as he racked his mind for the answer, he reflexively snuggled up closer to Talwyn. Without thinking, he inhaled her scent, noting how easily it seemed to cut through the dying odor of citrus and smelled like nothing else in the galaxy.

He also noted that the scent didn't excite him like last time, not in the same way at least. He wasn't nervous about breathing it in and his heart didn't race. Instead, the pleasant smell felt calming and relaxing. He closed his eyes as he let it permeate his mind and soul.

* * *

**AN: Alright, last chapter for In Search of Days Past comes out on Tuesday, at which time the poll for the new short story will go active. Last chance to suggest a new premise if you have one in mind.**


	8. The End

Talwyn jostled awake.

Her eyes were blurry with sleep and she rubbed at them reflexively in an attempt to reorient herself.

Yawning deeply to try and clear her hazy mind, the tired Markazian finally blinked her vision into focus and looked around her father's study, slowly realizing where she was.

Her memory came back in pieces. She remembered showing Ratchet the journal she'd found and showing him how she'd bookmarked every section where her father had mentioned Kaden.

She remembered how at first the young Lomax had been hesitant, but as the two of them read the journal, he'd quickly become engrossed in her father's words. At least, on the inside he was.

Talwyn smiled to herself as she recalled Ratchet trying to play off his interest as if he was just mildly curious. After all, a 'too cool' galactic hero like him would never jump up and down at something so emotionally touching as this. His ears and tail betrayed him, however, and they'd told Talwyn the 'real' truth.

She looked around the room, still a little drowsy. She appeared to be alone now, though.

Next, she remembered feeling her eyelids growing heavy, after the initial rush of showing off the journal had finally abated. She remembered refusing to go to bed as Ratchet had suggested, wanting to stay and watch every twitch of delight he made as he read the journal, and to be there if he wanted to talk about any of it. At the very least, there had been a few 'Max-isms' that her father tended to use in his writing that weren't always easy to understand without a translator.

With a frustrated groan, the now fully awake Markazian realized she must have fallen asleep after all.

Talwyn glanced out through the large observation window and used the current position of the space station relative to a few familiar, nearby asteroids to check the time.

Her eyes widened as she counted out the hours

'_How could I have slept that long?'_ her thoughts demanded, despite knowing full well that she'd been awake more than long enough to warrant such an exhaustion-induced coma.

Talwyn quickly tried to get up, but found herself held in place by something heavy in her lap. Thinking her legs were still asleep, she looked down in confusion, before immediately feeling her heart stop in her chest.

She wasn't alone after all.

There on her lap, head resting on her thighs and back turned to her, was Ratchet.

Talwyn's mouth worked itself open and closed, but no words came out as she fought to grasp the situation she had suddenly found herself in.

Looking around for answers, she saw the small, handheld holo-projector that contained her father's journal. It was resting on the table, still powered on, but in sleep-mode due to lack of user contact.

Ratchet must have fallen asleep reading the journal and then fell onto her lap.

Talwyn relaxed a little as understanding came to her, though her heart still raced in her chest.

She then looked down again at the sleeping Lombax, his small frame rising and falling gently with his steady breathing. She smiled to herself at the thought of him reading the journal until he passed out.

Reflexively, she reached out and placed an affectionate hand on Ratchet's head, feeling a deep sense of satisfaction that she had been able to give this to him. She hoped that, deep down, she had been able to bring the pained Lombax just a little bit of comfort, and, judging by the way he was sleeping soundly on her lap, she felt confident that she had, which made her smile grow even wider.

Then Ratchet's ear twitched…

Talwyn's whole body went stiff, every muscle suddenly being pulled taut on reflex alone.

Large and focused, even her eyes remained perfectly still, like a predator that had spotted prey.

The reaction had been so fast and so subconscious, that the young Markazian wasn't even really sure what she was doing. She was just watching the back of Ratchet's head fixedly for several long seconds until… his ear twitched again. Twice this time.

Talwyn's breathing came to her in long, slow draws and releases as, completely of their own accord, her hands slowly raised up into the air.

'_No, no, no!'_ a small part of her mind whispered weakly, knowing what was coming, but unheard over the wordlessly silent roar of instinctual desire that reigned supreme in her thoughts.

Talwyn swallowed hard, her heart pounding so violently against her chest now that it could probably wake Ratchet up at any moment, but she paid it no heed as her hands slowly moved closer, encircling the Lombax ear tentatively.

At the last moment, however, she hesitated, '_It's fine, right?'_ asked another part of her mind, as the rush of the moment faded and the fear of consequences finally broke through. '_He… he wouldn't mind just a 'little' touch… right?'_

With this moment of lucidity, Talwyn rasped out, "R-Ratchet… Hey, Ratchet… you… are you awake?" hoping that she could save herself from her own desires.

Her words weren't loud, but they should have been more than enough to wake up someone whose hearing was as sensitive as Ratchet's.

But the sleeping Lombax did not react.

Swallowing again, this time with no saliva in her mouth, Talwyn realized that Ratchet was out cold.

With this knowledge, her hands began shaking, just centimeters from their target, and Talwyn could see every strand of hair on the soft, furry appendage.

The decision raged like a storm in her mind, all of Talwyn's desires and pent up frustration strained against every ounce of self-restraint she could muster.

With jaw set, she told herself that this was wrong to do, and unfair to Ratchet… but then the ear twitched once more, the sudden flick reaching just far enough to lightly brush against the indecisive Markazian's fingers, sending a jolt of electricity shooting through her hand.

In the next instant, her hands had snapped shut, her fingertips eagerly burying themselves into the smoothest, softest thing she'd ever felt in her life.

It was everything she'd always dreamed of, like a thin layer of warm silk wrapped around a semi-rigid base. A base stiff enough to stand up on its own, but malleable enough for her to bend at her will.

Talwyn's face contorted into all kinds of indescribably embarrassing expressions of sheer bliss as her hands slid up and down, all ten of her fingers exploring every feathery inch of Ratchet's ear.

As the minutes went by like seconds, the enamored Markazian grew bolder, bending and folding the appendage at various angles.

Eventually, she reached over with one hand and took hold of the second ear, before rubbing both simultaneously, doubling the level of embarrassment on her facial expressions.

Feeling even bolder, Talwyn had an idea. Her movements began to slow and the rapid pulse of her heart became more controlled. With a deep breath and great care, the elated Markazian held an ear in each hand and very slowly, she began moving them closer together, bit by bit, until she made the two tips touch.

In that moment, Talwyn felt as if lightning had struck. With eyes wide and jaw wide in a ridiculous grin, she took in the sight before, burning the image of Ratchet's ears touching into her mind forever. It was adorable.

Having achieved step one, she then slowly pulled the two ears apart once more… before bringing them back together again, touching tip-to-tip.

Next, she pulled the ears apart, then she pushed the tips back together. Next, she pulled the ears apart, then she pushed the tips back together. Next, she pulled the ears apart, then she pushed the tips back together.

After that, Talwyn pulled them back apart. Then, she made them touch once more. Then, she let them separate, before bringing them back together and interlacing the fur on the tips of each ear.

Next, she moved each ear back away from the other as far as they could go, then she moved the tips back as close as they could go. Then, she moved the ears apart on a different axis, one forward, one back. Then she reversed it, one back, one forward, until the ear tips touched.

Talwyn was so enthralled by what was, by now, a serious psychological addiction, that she accidentally scraped a finger across Ratchet's head, right at the base of the ear.

The slumbering Lombax stirred suddenly, causing the startled Markazian to let go, before freezing in fear.

She gulped, her hands just inches away from Ratchet's head, as she waited in fear for him to wake up.

But he didn't. In fact, he showed no signs that he was even close to consciousness.

Talwyn let out a hushed breath of relief, but then her worry slowly turned to curiosity. If Ratchet hadn't been about to wake up, then what had that reflex been?

Experimentally, Talwyn softly caressed her fingers over that same spot and, once more, elicited a slight reaction from the sleeping Lombax that he did not wake from.

Again, she stroked the area, just behind his ear, and again she watched as a twitch of pleasure made its way down Ratchet's body.

Fascinated with her discovery, the young Markazian began to rub the spot more consistently, slowly scratching the location, and causing the muscles in Ratchet's body to contract with each pass. She noted, with amazement, how the motion caused him to stretch out his neck and legs, and how his back arched slightly. The more she did, the further they went.

As she continued to increase the pace, Ratchet's foot began to tap against the couch, the sleeping Lombax's ankle twitching in time with her fingers' movements.

This reaction only encouraged Talwyn even further, and she began to scratch ever more fervently, watching with delight as his body reacted, but never taking her peripheral vision off of her true goal.

Then, at long last, Ratchet's tail began to wag.

Talwyn was biting her lip so hard that she was afraid she might break skin, but knowing that loosening her jaw even a fraction would allow a stream of delighted squeals to erupt from her throat.

In that moment, she knew, without a doubt, that this made everything, all her hardships and embarrassment, totally worth it!

Then, at the very peak of happiness, a soft groan came from Ratchet's mouth, immediately breaking the young Markazian's good mood and making her hands stop dead in their tracks.

For a horrifying few seconds, the unconscious Lombax stirred, rolling his stiff limbs as he adjusted to the sudden sensation change.

Talwyn held her breath, her joy turning to fear that she'd gone too far. She wondered in terror what Ratchet would think if he woke up now, to find himself like this and realize what she had been doing to him.

Several tense moments passed, as Ratchet still stirred on her lap, but eventually, the worried Markazain felt him settle down again. His head nestling back onto her thighs as if they were the best pillow in the galaxy.

Talwyn breathed a long sigh of relief, her heart a rapid thunder drum on her chest. Again she chided herself. Angry at her own lack of self-control and ashamed of her actions.

When she'd finally calmed down, though, she sank into the back of the couch and let herself relax. Even after all that sleep, she was somehow suddenly very tired again.

She calmed herself further by watching Ratchet sleep, his furry head peaceful and warm on her lap.

She cherished that warmth, slowly letting it fill her, until she somehow felt it in her chest.

Then the moment turned surreal as she realized the warmth in her chest wasn't physical, it was her own happiness made manifest.

When Ratchet had left last time, she had looked at the heartbroken Lombax and had feared that she'd never see him again and she had cried at the thought of being helpless to do anything to comfort his pain.

But that fear was gone now. He was back... here... with her again. And that realization warmed every inch of her body and mind.

Overcome with joy, Talwyn gently put a hand on Ratchet's head, not to play with his fur this time, but just to prove to herself that he was actually there.

She smiled again, before leaning forward and whispering in his ear, "Welcome home, Ratchet."

…

…

And the grinning Lombax replied, "Thanks, Tal," before turning over in her lap and looking up at the petrified Markazian's face. "For everything," he added, his lips curled back into a smile, and his eyes gazing up at her with affection.

But Talwyn hadn't even heard the words, her mind had completely seized, unable to handle the sheer and sudden embarrassment upon seeing the complete lack of sleep in Ratchet's face.

Her mouthed moved on reflex, "I-I was… T-t-t-hat is… H-How long have you been awake?"

Ratchet's smile twisted slightly, becoming more of mischievous grin, as he looked up into her fearful expression, "And here I thought 'I' was good with my hands."

Talwyn's face flared red as the memories of all the things she'd just done came flooding back to her, along with what felt like every drop of blood in her body going to her cheeks. Her face burned as the rest of her went cold.

Desperate, the panicked Markazian tried to explain, her mouth working frantically, but only garbled half-words came from it.

Ratchet frowned slightly, though the frown did not reach his eyes. Even though he'd even said the words, she still hadn't figured out what he was trying to do.

Before a coherent excuse could pass Talwyn's lips, Ratchet leaned forward, putting his own lips to hers, and kissed her gently. This time, making sure that his appreciation was abundantly clear.

The warm sensation on Talwyn's lips thawed her frozen mind in seconds, melting away all of the confusion and anxiety that had gummed it up. Despite this, however, not a single coherent thought passed through it... but that was fine. Instinct had taken over and her body relaxed back against the coach, Ratchets soft touch never falling behind as she leaned back and drank in his taste.

She could smell him too. He smelled good.

Neither Ratchet nor Talwyn knew how long they'd remained connected, but eventually, the tiny bubble meter had run low and their lips finally pulled apart.

Resting their foreheads against one another while panting softly, their breaths intermingled as their minds attempted to fully comprehend what they'd just experienced.

Somewhere in the back of Talwyn's mind, she finally recognized Ratchet's 'thank you' and she responded to it, "Y-yeah," she rasped out breathlessly, her words barely above a whisper. "An… Anytime..."

Ratchet grinned, '_Third time's the charm,'_ he thought, before lifting his head up to nuzzle Talwyn's nose with his own, before leaning in once more and kissing her again.

* * *

**AN:**

**And that concludes **_**In Search of Days Past**_**. I had a lot of fun writing this shorter piece. It was a nice change of pace from years of focusing only on my main story.**

**Polls are up on my profile page for the next side story I write. Find it at the very top of the page. I will leave voting open until I finish the current arc of my main story and if no one synopsis has more than 50% I will probably have a runoff vote.**

**In the meantime, if you liked this story then check out my main series, **_**Days Past**_**. I promise the same quality writing and a much longer and in-depth storyline.**

**P.S. Thank you, Fanfiction Guy, for your story suggestion. I appreciate the help. However, there are two reasons why I can't use it. The first being that I was looking for story ideas involving the main-cast of the R&C series. The second reason why I can't use your suggestion, and also the reason I was looking for main-cast stories in the first place, is that I am 'already' writing an extensive prequel story! It's actually my main storyline, **_**Days Past**_**, which I mentioned above and it focuses on Kaden, Alister during their younger years, but will eventually follow the Lombaxes through their fall and its aftermath. Check it out if your interested in reading my take on Lombax society and Kaden's story in general.**


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